


i guess any thrill will do

by fensandmarshes, supinetothestars



Series: last night's clothes and tomorrow's dreams 'verse [6]
Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV), Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Blatant Misuse of Superpowers, Bruce Banner Drinks Tea, Clint Barton needs a nap, Conspiracy Theories, Crack Treated Seriously, Flerken Kittens, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Human Disaster Matt Murdock, Kittens, Road Trips, Team Red, Team as Family, Trans Peter Parker, Wade Wilson Being an Idiot, area 51, but as a flerken kitten, flerkens, stan lee - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:07:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 22,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22353829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fensandmarshes/pseuds/fensandmarshes, https://archiveofourown.org/users/supinetothestars/pseuds/supinetothestars
Summary: This is a terrible idea, and Matt would know. The problem lies herein: Matt knows that however hard he tries to convince Wade and Peter not to go through with this dumbass plan, they aren’t going to change their minds. And while total disaster sounds like a rather inconvenient (if fitting) interruption to Matt’s daily routine,Peterdying, catching fire, or getting arrested sounds like Matt’s sanity finally snapping under the weight of survivor’s guilt. Unfortunately, the only way Matt can preserve the kid’s safety and his own functionality is by lending himself to the cause, whether it be finding aliens or whatever else Wade hopes to accomplish with this fucking travesty of a road trip.Or: Wade decides on September 18th that fuck it, he wants to raid Area 51. He shows up at Matt’s apartment with two kittens and a fully convinced Peter in tow. Road trip time!
Relationships: (but only if you squint) - Relationship, Matt Murdock & Peter Parker, Matt Murdock & Peter Parker & Wade Wilson, Matt Murdock & Wade Wilson, Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, Peter Parker & Wade Wilson
Series: last night's clothes and tomorrow's dreams 'verse [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1535831
Comments: 189
Kudos: 233





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this fic has been a WILD RIDE and i'm SUPER HYPED to finally post it lol (or maybe that's the caffeine)  
> title from "someone new" by hozier (hozier is like the PERFECT source of convenient title-y song lyrics????? damn)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> See, this is why Matt avoids teaching twerpy little teenagers. You give them _one_ little lesson on how to punch someone and they get you all invested in their happiness and then ask you to do something utterly batshit insane and you have say yes because they’re _just so goddamn excited about it._

**Matt**

Matt rises with the sun on September 18th, 2019 to the sound of someone hammering on his apartment door. Still in bed, he pauses and listens to the thudding, trying to place its source. After a moment, the combination of impressions forms itself into a) Peter Parker, the kid he’s desperately trying not to become a father figure to and b) Wade Wilson, the thorn eternally embedded in his side. After a brief reflection he decides that _fuck no,_ he’s not dealing with this right now, and rolls over in an attempt to go back to sleep. 

That’s when he hears the crash, combined with the sound of wood splintering. Wade’s kicked the door down. Again.

For a moment he’s pissed, but he’s learned the hard way that being pissed at Wade is pointless (he’ll just piss you off further and you’ll waste your breath) and as he stands he’s already contemplating where to buy a new door. This isn’t the first time it’s been kicked down. In fact, this isn’t the first time it’s been kicked down by Wade. In fact, this is not the first time it’s been kicked down by Wade with a strangely enthusiastic Peter at his heels; a few weeks ago they’d collectively decided (or more likely, Wade had decided and managed to convince the kid) that Australia was a hoax and that Team Red was going to collectively expose the lies of the paid actors to the world.

He allows himself one long sigh. 

**Wade**

Peter’s visibly vibrating and there’s no pauses between his words, they’re pouring in a startled rush: “Matt, Matt we’re gonna raid Area 51,” and Wade remembers grimly that it’s another fucking energy drink to blame. Wade’s gonna find the CEOs of any and all companies that produce energy drinks and he’s gonna stab ‘em. Matt’ll help probably, as long as Wade keeps the ‘stabbing’ part of the plan from him - wait, fuck no, Matt has no regard for his medical safety and relies on what he’s dubbed ‘the elixir of life’ and Wade’s dubbed ‘looks like a fuckin’ potion straight out of a cauldron, Redthew, ya really gonna drink that?’ to keep awake for forty-eight hours straight ‘cause he’s a fucking moron. It’s Monster mixed with five-hour energy mixed with double-strength espresso. Wade’s told the kid to stop drinking those because they’ll give you cancer and ‘cancer bad, kid, don’t even try’ but all he ever gets in return is a ‘fuck you’re so old’ and that always manages to give him pause.

Anywho. 

Peter’s bouncing on the balls of his feet, his voice pitched higher than usual (Wade’s noticed the kid does something about altering it, lowering it, and he guesses it’s a gender-roles bullshit dignity thing; it goes away when he’s excited). That _might_ convince Matt to come along - and if it gets Matt to come willingly, rather than having to be unconscious for half the drive, then Wade considers it a godsend no matter his status as a ‘godless heathen’. 

Wade has a _plan_ , too: if Matt doesn’t cave, Wade will remind him subtly (‘you’re as subtle as a fucking assault rifle, Wilson’) that he intends to go regardless and Matt might as well follow along to keep him in check.

The hero (well, no - vigilante, really) of the hour gives the two of them a glare that by all rights shouldn’t be anatomically possible. “No.”

“But Maaaaaattttt,” Wade whines. Peter mimics him and makes puppy dog eyes. His are far more convincing. Not that either of their pleading _looks_ will do them much good when it comes to Matt. 

Matt just glares harder. “No.”

Wade doesn’t stress it. After all, he has a trump card (he’s gotta kill that guy too, actually) that hasn’t failed him yet. 

“If you don’t come, we’ll just go without you,” he explains. “Wouldn’t you rather be there to keep us from getting in trouble?” 

**Matt**

Fuck.

**Wade**

“Look - or don’t I guess - Peter planned out our route on Google Maps and everything,” Wade entreats. “It’s a team-building exercise!”

Matt ignores him, and Wade knows from experience he’s already won. 

Matt pointedly turns away from Wade (who’s pretty sure that he’s now firmly entrenched as, to quote ‘the thorn eternally embedded in my fucking side’ in Matt’s internal dialogue), and asks Peter, “Kid, how is your aunt okay with this?”

Peter shoots Wade a frantic glance.

**Matt**

This is a terrible idea, and Matt would know. As Foggy informed him last night, after a game of pool he lost because of a risky tactical decision that didn’t pay off, terrible ideas are kind of Matt’s forte. Apparently Wade is coming for his schtick. Wade does that a lot, between the red costume and the Halloweens spent doing things in a Daredevil costume that make J.J. Jameson positively vibrate with fury.

Speaking of vibrating, the kid’s moving like a hummingbird; the smell of an energy drink lingers in the air, and Matt suspects that’s the culprit. That, or Peter’s excitement over this Area 51 idea that’s probably going to end with total disaster. 

The problem lies herein: Matt knows that however hard he tries to convince Wade and Peter not to go through with this decision, they aren’t going to change their minds. And while total disaster sounds like a rather inconvenient (if fitting) interruption to Matt’s daily routine, _Peter_ dying, catching fire, or getting arrested sounds like Matt’s sanity finally snapping under the weight of survivor’s guilt. 

He can’t convince them not to go. But he’s already come to terms with what was probably the same conclusion Wade had reached when hashing out this plan, and _definitely_ the same conclusion that resulted in Wade’s strategic recruitment of Peter: the only way Matt can be sure the kid doesn’t end up dead or in the Raft is by lending himself to the cause, whether it be finding aliens or whatever else Wade hopes to accomplish with this fucking travesty of a plan.

**Wade**

Wade can tell that Matt’s angsting over this and probably imagining horrible potential endings to this adventure, but that’s his problem, quite frankly, and Wade’s not about to give up on this idea. It should be good for Matt anyway, right? It’ll get him to disrupt the stuffy little routine he’s stuck in. Matt does this thing, if you’re (“you” meaning _anyone_ , not just Wade because Matt’s got loads of actual real-people friends who aren’t fucked up in thirty different ways) not careful, where he gets stuck in a well of gUiLt and old sorrows, and slowly starts walling himself off from the world outside his routine of the law firm and patrolling. The worst part is that if you (the hypothetical “you”) don’t pay attention, you won’t even notice he’s doing it until suddenly he won’t answer phone calls and when you show up at his house in the middle of the night with a mission for the two of you he’ll just say he works alone and has thought better of the team-up thing and slam his door in your face, or quite possibly _on_ your face which can lead to some broken noses and bloodstained suits. 

Not that he’s doing that now, as far as Wade can tell, but you gotta be careful. 

Also, concerns for Matt’s mental and emotional wellbeing are a much more convincing argument than “I wanna steal some dope-ass aliens for Stan Lee to beat up with her tentacles”. 

**Matt**

“- haven’t told her,” Peter is saying, and Matt has to snap his mind out of that particular thought spiral.

“You what now?”

“I said that I haven’t told her,” Peter says, and twists his fingers together. “You alright, Mr Murdock? You kind of spaced out there for a moment.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Matt says, and scratches his neck. “Look, just come in and we’ll talk this over, alright?” He stands to the side and ushers the two of them through the doorway, firmly shutting it behind them. It’s a miracle that the neighbors haven’t noticed Wade’s visits by now, but not a miracle he’d like to test. 

Wade meanders towards the kitchen and then immediately makes a beeline for Matt’s cabinets, which he starts banging around in loudly. Peter leans against the counter and stares at Wade’s progress.

“So let me get this straight,” Matt says (and Wade scoffs at that notion): “You didn’t ask _anyone_ about this?”

“I told my friends!” Peter reassures him. “It’s a four day weekend because of some parent-teacher conferences, so I’d be out of school anyway, so will you go with us? Please, Mr. Murdock?” A calculated pause. “Pleeease _Matt_? I promised Ned I’d take pictures of the aliens for him so it’s too late for me to back out now so you gotta come with us!”

“Peter,” Matt says patiently, as he walks towards where Wade is making a mess in his tea cabinet, “I don’t think this is a good idea - Wade, stop that.”

Wade has started sniffing all the teabags. “This isn’t weed,” he says, sounding rather resentful. “You said you had weed tea before we busted that mafia thing, remember?”

“I said I had a cleansing herbal tea,” Matt corrects, and closes the cabinet door on Wade’s hand, hard. Wade makes a pitiful noise and pulls his fingers out, shaking them a little to get the blood flowing again. “ _You_ said I had weed tea, and now you’re just spilling tea bags all over the counter, so don’t.”

“Sounds like what someone selfish who doesn’t want to share his weed tea would say.”

“I don’t think weed, like, _works_ if you infuse it,” Matt muses, walking over to the table by the hallway and running his fingers over it until they bump against his glasses. He grabs them and, sliding them onto his nose, turns to face the two of them. “So. This ‘Area 51’ thing. You’re going with or without me?”

Peter nods enthusiastically, and then realizes his mistake and verbalizes the affirmation. “- but I’d really appreciate it if you came too, Mr Murdock,” he adds hopefully.

See, this is why Matt avoids teaching twerpy little teenagers. You give them one little lesson on how to punch someone and they get you all invested in their happiness and then ask you to do something utterly batshit insane and you have say yes because they’re just so goddamn excited about it. 

Damn you, Wade Wilson.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two hours in, Matt’s learned more than he ever wanted to about a myriad of topics including but not limited to: the sheer _length_ of the movie Frozen, Peter’s exact status regarding drivers’ licenses, exactly how competitive pun wars can become, that Peter sometimes smells worryingly like blood, and the real reason you should never become friends with people so utterly obnoxious.

**Wade**

The moment Wade knows Matt has given in completely is when Matt sighs and mutters first  _ damn you, Wade Wilson _ and then something that sounds like a prayer under his breath. Wade high-fives Peter, which he realizes was a mistake when the force of the blow nearly knocks Wade out of his chair. So, the kid is excited. That’s nice. Wade’s excited too, because if they make it to Nevada alive he’s going to get to see the Men in Black headquarters in person. (They say that movie’s fictional, but that sounds like just the sort of thing a top secret organization would spread as propaganda to keep anyone from suspecting its existence, right? Right! Plus, ‘fictional’ gets blurry when you’re a fanfiction interpretation of a RP interpretation of a movie-comics amalgamation who somehow adopted two kittens and a, ahem,  _ history _ with Daredevil - not that he’d ever admit it - along the way. Wade thinks he’s doing quite well, all things considered.)

“When do we leave?” Matt says, flatly, defeated. Debbie Downer son of a - well Wade can’t in good faith insult  _ nuns _ , can he? Good thing he has no good faith to speak of! Peter’s rattling off a string of ideas, things like a  _ schedule  _ and a  _ map route  _ and other things that prove he, the child, is really the only functioning adult in the room. Wade wishes he could harness that limitless energy somehow. Renewables? Broke, who needs them. Peter jittering out of his own fucking spine? Woke, bespoke, could power the entire planet and then some. 

The upshot of Peter’s endless chatter (Wade’s so proud) seems to be “pack your bags mIsTeR mUrDoCk we’re leaving right fucking NOW if we want to make it by September 20th” (paraphrased, of course, as the kid still seems convinced he’s pg13 and only gets one ‘fuck’ every major narrative arc). It’s thirty-eight hours or some fucking thing. Fifty hours until the sun rises over Area 51 (or maybe forty-six? Time zones. Wade’s got no fucking clue). They can make it. Maybe they can even teach Matt to drive -

“NO. MR DEADPOOL THAT’S A TERRIBLE IDEA -”

Wade’s not seeing the problem here. Out on the I-80 it’s not like there’s anyone to hit -

“I know how to drive anyway, fuck you,” Matt adds helpfully. 

_ Ohoh _ . 

This is new information and Wade fully intends to force him to prove it.

  
  
  
  


“I don’t have a license, Wade, that would be illegal,” Matt sniffs from the passenger seat of Wade’s beat up red-painted truck (branding is important!).

“Pretty sure vigilantism is illegal too and yet here we are.”

Wade gives the horn another honk for good measure - fucking New York, whose idea was it to drive out of here anyway? (“Yours, Mr. Deadpool.”) Peter’s sprawled out on the back seats, scrolling through his phone and fiddling with his shirt (it’s a weird mannerism, one Wade can’t quite get the measure of; like he’s adjusting it? Whatever). He says he’s going to find a ‘vine compilation’ and explains that “it doesn’t matter if it’s visible from the front seat anyway, right Mr Murdock, so I can just play it from here” - is Wade a joke to him? 

(That’s the eternal question, and the answer is eternally yes.)

Wade taps his fingers impatiently against the steering wheel and makes eye contact through his Deadpool mask with the woman driving in the lane next to him. She stares at him for a solid five seconds and then slams on the gas pedal, veering out of sight at what is likely several dozen miles per hour above the speed limit. 

“You’re scaring the locals, Wade,” Matt says cooly, crossing his arms.

“That’s the idea, Red.” Wade swerves into the other lane to bypass the traffic lined up ahead of them. Peter voices his protest against the reckless driving. 

“Would you rather Matt drove instead, Red Junior?”

Peter would not.

**Matt**

Wade’s probably going to end up crashing the car and killing everyone, which Matt resents. Dying because of Wade’s terrible driving would add some nice symmetry to his life - blinded by a car crash, given superpowers by a car crash, and finally killed by a car crash. Matt, who resents literary parallels, dislikes the idea of his life having the kind of heavy-handed plot symbolism that might be found in a badly written Y.A. adventure novel. 

Speaking of lacking subtlety: Wade Winston Wilson. He’s gunning the truck down an empty country road with no regard for safety standards. This is extremely in-character, but Matt takes it upon himself to grouch about it regardless.

“It’s okay, Dopinder’s a taxi driver and he drives this fast all the time,” Wade reassures Matt. “We’ve only crashed a few times, too.”

Matt can practically hear Peter’s disapproving stare from the backseat. “Who’s Dopinder?” Matt asks, hoping the answer will alarm the kid enough that he tells Wade off - that’s always hilarious. Like a kitten hissing at a puma. 

“I just told you, dipshit, he’s a taxi driver!”

“Don’t call Mr Murdock that, Mr Deadpool - uh, Wade,” Peter protests. He’s been given full control of the car’s bluetooth speakers. 

“Fight me, Parker,” Wade retorts, and swerves to avoid a possum. Matt hits his head on the window and spits out a curse of his own. “Even my comics have  **PARENTAL ADVISORY** on the back, I can cuss as much as I want.”

“If you call Mr Murdock that again I’ll play the Frozen karaoke playlist,” Peter says stubbornly, and starts typing. “I’m pulling it up now, I’ll do it -”

“Fuck yes,” Wade says gleefully.

Matt opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it again, aware he probably seems somewhat like a goldfish. “Who is this supposed to be a punishment for, me or him?”

“Shut up, dipshit, you’re just afraid of my beautiful singing voice,” Wade snarks, turning towards Matt - probably to glare - instead of watching the road. Peter, observing that his warning notice has been disregarded, slams his finger down on the screen of his phone.

Matt covers his ears, but it’s not enough. Wade’s already singing. It’s gonna be a long thirty-eight hours.

Two hours in, Matt’s learned more than he ever wanted to about a myriad of topics including but not limited to: the  _ length  _ of the movie Frozen (or more specifically its soundtrack), Peter’s exact status regarding drivers’ licenses (after Wade offered him the wheel and was emphatically declined), exactly how competitive pun wars can become (Wade and Peter asked Matt to judge; he decided against it), that Peter sometimes smells worryingly like blood (Matt can’t figure out if that’s Wade’s influence or his own - probably both) and the real reason you should never become friends with people so _ utterly obnoxious _ . Matt literally does not give a shit if Wade dies (he’ll walk it off regardless), which has probably helped with the ‘if I get close to people I hurt them’ mentality that was Stick’s longest-lasting legacy. Unfortunately, the Child is a different story. A story that somehow convinced him to drive to Area goddamned 51.

Nevada has never felt further away.

Four hours in and Matt’s so bored that he’s providing a running commentary on the guys in the next car over, complete with dramatic impressions. He’s explained that both of them are, judging from the heartbeats, deeply enamoured with each other, and neither of them know of the other’s affections. (“ _ REMIND YOU OF ANYONE, REDTHEW? _ ” Wade had whispered aggressively -  _ “COUGH, COUGH, FOGGY  _ -” but that was ridiculous, and just Wade being an idiot as usual, so Matt dismisses it.) 

“Oh!” Matt gasps after a period of silence.

Peter perks up. “What?!” Of the three of them, he seems to be the most deeply invested in the epic love story taking place in the white sedan (“You can’t just not tell us what they’re saying, Mr. Murdock, that’s not fair!”) and has decided that he and Wade are entitled to any and all dialogue Matt manages to pick up. 

“One of them,” Matt says, “Jared,” and then he tries to articulate the precise pattern of tells that’s letting him know Jared is about to confess to something. “He’s, he keeps breathing in like he’s gonna say something and then cutting himself off before he talks, his heart spikes right as he does that, he’s sweating buckets -”

“He’s going to confess!” Wade squeals, and the car swerves violently. He rights it after a second, but Matt punches him in the shoulder anyway, hard enough to hurt. “Hey,” Wade states. His tone is not quite indignant enough to indicate that he’s actually bothered; he shuts up for the barest of moments, and Matt’s pretty sure he’s trying to convince the two of them that he’s not  _ that  _ invested in what’s going on between Jared and Tom, before bursting out “Okay, but has he said anything yet?”

Matt pauses, turning his attention back to the sedan and laughs. “Jared’s trashtalking your driving - oh, shit! ‘I’ve got something, uh,’” he relates in his best Jared-voice. “‘I have to tell you something, Tom, and I really hope it - This might, um, change the way you see me, but I really hope it doesn’t.’” Matt pauses there, for the sake of suspense and because it is, quite frankly,  _ incredibly  _ amusing to observe Peter’s and Wade’s responses.

Peter is silent, and Matt knows full well he’s on the edge of his seat both figuratively and literally. Wade, on the other hand, prompts him “ _ And _ ?” in an extremely pointed voice. It’s obnoxious, so Matt decides he’ll just shut up for a few minutes if Wade is gonna be that rude.

“Ah, fuck, no, Redthew, I’m sorryyyy,” Wade entreats, “just tell us  _ please _ .”

Hmm. Wade would owe him one after this. That would be something like four favours owed to Matt, now. Well, more, but he figures that favours he owes Wade and favours Wade owes him cancel out until they’re left with the scales tipping in one direction or the other.

“I’ll owe you forty, Red, please just tell us what’s happening!”

Maybe if Wade asked very nicely -

“I will literally strangle you if you don’t tell me what Jared’s saying right fucking now,” Wade growls.

“I want to die so hurry up, would ya?”

Peter breathes in sharp, just enough that Matt notices it. He whips around in his seat and shoots the kid a glare. Wade, on the other hand, didn’t get the memo that there was supposed to be an awkward silence right about now, and he says “Please, Redthew? I won’t take jobs for a month if you just tell -”

“Wait,” Peter says, and it probably seems sudden to Wade but Matt noticed the intake of breath, the shifting of his position. “You’re joking, right, Mr. Murdock? Because if you  _ are  _ that’s fine, but -”

“Jared just came out to Tom,” Matt interrupts instead of answering. “He’s, uh, pansexual - that’s like you, right Wade?” (An affirmation in the form of a whoop and a yelled ‘REPRESENT!’) “Tom laughed and said ‘Oh, buddy, you and me both’ so I’m not sure if that means he’s also pan or just not straight or what, but they’re one step closer to -”

“My OTP is getting togetherrrrr,” Wade sing-songs happily.

“I thought me and MJ were your OTP,” Peter pouts, just under his breath.

Matt laughs out loud. “Peter. No. He’s just telling you that to make you like him.”

Wade gasps. “I would  _ never _ -”

“Quiet!” Matt interrupts, turning his head in a series of quick motions, the better to hear Tom’s confession

“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod,” Wade whispers. 

“I said  _ quiet _ , Wade.”

“How long have you known me, snookums?”

“Long enough for you to know exactly how many places I’ll break your arm in if you call me ‘snookums’,” Matt responds absently, his focus with Jared and Tom. “Do you want to hear Tom telling Jared that he’s the greatest thing in his life and the reason he’s still alive, or -?”

Wade shuts up for two entire seconds. Matt thanks the Lord for a September miracle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're on tumblr at [desultorydenouement](https://desultorydenouement.tumblr.com/) and  
> [fenfirefic](https://fenfirefic.tumblr.com/)/[hoarding-citrine](https://hoarding-citrine.tumblr.com/) <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What’s your favorite food?”  
> “Ramen.”  
> “How old are you?”  
> “Older than you.”  
> “Have you ever gone to a zoo?”  
> “Yeah.”  
> “What about an aquarium?”  
> “Peter, I can see neither the fish nor the point.”

**Wade**

Peter’s dragged Red to the backseat and is trying to get him to participate in a video blog to show Aunt May and whatever super-child friends he’s managed to acquire. Red has his helmet on, now, because he says he doesn’t want to be on-camera without it, and it’s unclear whether Peter is filming a video blog or interrogating him.

“What’s your favorite food?”

“Ramen.” 

“How old are you?”

“Older than you.”

“Have you ever gone to a zoo?”

“Yeah.”

“What about an aquarium? I love aquariums - I went with MJ once and she showed me how to draw the fish, but I’m not really good at drawing so it looked more like a pointy circle.”

“Nah.”

“Ohmygodreally you should go to one they’re really cool -”

“Peter, I can see neither the fish nor the point.”

“I know, I know, but they have these stations where you can touch the starfish and stuff,” Peter pointed out. “I went to one and touched a stingray - it was really weird but I felt like Steve Irwin.”

Wade, chuckling, glances in the rearview mirror. Matt looks confused - or probably does, anyway. Can’t really tell through his mask.

“They let you touch the fish? That sounds dangerous.”

“Red, you are a fucking Hell’s Kitchen vigilante and I once personally watched you go for a swim in the Hudson River at midnight, so if you’ve palled around with whatever monster fish hybrids live in the Hudson I think you can handle an aquarium touch-tank,” Wade interrupts. His eyes are fixed on the road again, because it’s just occurred to him that if he hits a squirrel while driving Squirrel Girl will probably fly all the way to Nevada to stab him in the eyeballs. Can Squirrel Girl fly? Some squirrels can fly, right? He’s pretty sure he’s seen that in a nature documentary.

“I’m just saying,” Matt protests, “Humans are pretty dirty, and aquariums have a delicate ecosystem - also, Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray, so maybe you should rethink that comparison, Peter.”

“It was only acting in self-defense,” Peter insists, “and Steve would have wanted us to forgive it for its crime.”

“Steve would have wanted you to leave the poor stingray alone instead of poking at it in some touch-tank,” Matt muttered.  
“You watch Steve Irwin?” Peter asks, perking up. 

“I don’t watch shit.”

“You listen to Steve Irwin?”

“Foggy likes it, so I watch it with him sometimes and he narrates,” Matt admits.

“Gay,” Wade says in a singsong tone. Matt and Peter both ignore him.

“I love Steve Irwin!” Peter says, excited. “When I got superpowers I rewatched all the episodes with spiders to see if there was any kind of superpower I had but didn’t know about - did you know some tarantulas can fling their hairs at predators trying to eat them?”

“I didn’t, no,” Matt says, sounding slightly nauseous. “Can we change the topic?”

“Sure, Mr. Murdock. Hey, hey - have you ever been to a carnival?”

“No.”

“REALLY - hey, Wade, gimme your phone -”

Wade glances in the rearview mirror, indignant. “Absolutely not, kid - why?”

“Just give it to me now I need to look something up -”

Wade grabs his phone from the cupholder and starts trying to delete his search history with one hand while driving with the other, causing the vehicle to sway back and forth on the road a little - but there are no cars or squirrels in sight, so it’s probably fine. Matt makes a choked whining noise at the motion and clutches at his seatbelt. Wade lets go of the steering wheel momentarily and rolls down Matt’s window a little so he somewhere to aim if he has to puke.

“Waaaade,” Peter says impatiently. He’s buzzing with excitement again. Wade gives up and tosses the phone into the backseat haphazardly; let the kid look through the opened tabs at his own risk. Peter catches the phone - of course he does, kid has the instincts of a Hawkeye (or maybe better, seeing as the last time Wade threw something at a Hawkeye she not only didn’t catch it but actually passed out, the weakling).

Peter starts typing something and a few seconds later he glances up from Wade’s phone. “There’s a carnival in town near West Des Moines, it’s not far off our path,” he announces, sounding triumphant.

“Absolutely not,” Matt says.

“We’re on a time limit here, kid,” Wade says. “We gotta stick to the plan or we won’t get there in time and I won’t get to steal an alien punching bag for Stan Lee.”

“We’re stealing aliens?” Matt says, sounding alarmed. “I didn’t agree to this.”

“We’ll do it on the way back,” Peter insists, ignoring Matt.

“Objection,” Matt says.

“Overruled.” 

“That’s not how that works, you have to hear the objection first -”

“Objection. Overruled.”

“I’m not kidding, I don’t want to go to a carnival -”

“I’m holding you in contempt of court,” Peter says. He’s still filming.

“You can’t do that!”

“Yes I can!”

“Wade, I’m not going to a carnival,” Matt says, outsourcing the argument.

“You heard the judge, Red,” Wade crows, gleeful. “Your objection’s been overruled.”

“Hhhghh,” Matt groans, and buries his face in his hands. 

Wade’s driving along in the middle of nowhere, now, and the only signs of life are old windmills and billboards alongside the side of the road. Peter is asleep, and has been for a while, but Matt just sits in the backseat and stares out the window - at what, Wade has no idea. The window is still open, so maybe he’s smelling the countryside like a dog would, or like Gwennie’s pet shark. Jonah? Jameson? Fucking … J? Starts with a J, anyway. Hey, everyone in the car has an alliterative name, though some are more triple-barrelled than others; that’s pretty neat, right?

(Well, maybe not  _ everyone _ , given the - ahem. Every human, anyway. Something like that.)

Wade’s tried to suggest that Matt nap, too - after all, the drive is thirty-six hours long and it’s now been at least twelve, but Matt has yet to sleep. His subtle suggestions ( _ subtle  _ meaning “You need to go the fuck to sleep, Matty, do you want me to read you that picture book?”) led to a fun little story about the time Matt fell asleep in a moving car with the shit beat out of him and woke up locked inside it as it barrelled straight into the Hudson River at midnight, nearly drowning him and giving him deadly hypothermia.

So that’s fucked up.

But now both of the passengers are quiet, and so Wade has little else to do than watch the signs on the side of the road as they pass by. (One of them’s this bigass wooden sign that looks like it’s been up for centuries. Complete with a painting of the devil, horned and tailed and everything, it reads  _ Go To Church Or the Devil Will Get You _ . Wade snaps a picture of a very irritated Matt standing next to it, because life is short and true beauty rare.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you'd like to let us know what you thought, you can say hi at [hoarding-citrine](hoarding-citrine.tumblr.com) or [desultorydenouement](desultorydenouement.tumblr.com) on tumblr (or you can just leave us a comment!) <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I brought Stan Lee and Dryer Lint!” Wade hollers, possibly a little too enthusiastically, and he actually takes both hands off the wheel to pull them out from lord knows where. Peter shrieks and lunges for the wheel just in time to right the car, contorting his arms around Wade to reach the steering wheel and staring at the road through the gap between the front seats. Matt’s frozen, doesn’t know what to do ‘cause what the fuck, Wade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. So. Stan Lee and Dryer Lint. The gist of it is that Stan Lee is a flerken kitten and Dryer Lint is a regular kitten, but Matt is utterly convinced they're both hamsters because he has this thing about small rodents where he thinks they're all the same thing. Apologies for the clusterfuck that is our canon and we hope you enjoy this update.

**Matt**

“So,” Wade says out of the blue, startling Peter awake from where he’d been napping on the back seats, “I may have forgotten to mention something.”

Matt does his best approximation of an eye roll. “Is this about your hamsters?”

“Jesus  _ fuck _ , Red -”

“- Excuse you.”

“- they’re kittens,” Wade continues doggedly. “But. Yes.”

Peter raises a hand to his face, and Matt guesses he must be rubbing sleep out of his eyes. “Kittens?”

“I brought Stan Lee and Dryer Lint!” Wade hollers, possibly a little too enthusiastically, and he actually takes both hands off the wheel to pull them out from lord knows where ( _ not  _ a euphemism) (though Matt’s pretty sure he  _ has  _ used that euphemism in the past, and isn’t that a mind-fuck). Peter shrieks and lunges for the wheel just in time to right the car, contorting his arms around Wade to reach the steering wheel and staring at the road through the gap between the front seats. Matt’s frozen, doesn’t know what to do ‘cause what the  _ fuck _ , Wade.

Wade, oblivious, passes one hamster off to Matt and the other to Peter. “Aren’t they  _ perfect? _ ” he coos.

Dude.

What the fuck.

Peter’s still clutching the steering wheel with the hand not holding a hamster, and the car starts swaying a little side to side as he struggles to keep it steady. His breathing is worryingly shallow. “I got it, I got it, chillax,” Wade mutters, taking the wheel. Peter lets go and collapses back into the backseat with a sigh of relief, clutching the hamster almost desperately.

“Mr Deadpool, did you keep these  _ in your suit?  _ They must have been really cramped - that doesn’t seem safe.”

“They’re perfectly alright with the power of really fuckin big deus-ex-machina pockets, Pete. You know, when something important and OP and unrealistic is conveniently glossed over by the authors of a -”

“I’m sure he knows what that is,” Matt grumbles. He holds the other hamster out at arm’s length, afraid to bring it closer.

“She’s not gonna eat you, Red,” Wade says. “The fuck you afraid of? Aren’t you supposed to be the mAn wItHoUt fEaR and all that?” 

“You don’t know that,” Matt tells him. “Animals are unpredictable. Weren’t we discussing this just a few hours ago? Something about stingrays?”

Wade snorts. “I do know that, dipshit, because that’s the actual kitten. Red Junior’s got Stan.” He jerks his thumb over his shoulder to indicate Peter, who’s cooing and cuddling Stan. 

“Uh,” Matt says, choosing to ignore the ‘Red Junior’ for now because that brings up a whole host of issues he does not want to get into. “Peter, maybe be careful with the rodent alien -”

Peter can’t hear him. He’s too busy cooing and whispering  _ good kitty _ under his breath. One of the two is purring, but Matt can’t tell if it’s the hamster or Peter, which he disregards for his delicate sanity’s sake. 

“Does he know that thing’s got tentacles?” Matt whispers to Wade, who shrugs, unconcerned.

Peter seems happy, so Matt leaves him be and turns his attention to the small fluff in his lap, which weighs as much as a feather and somehow generates as much heat as a fully lit stove. 

“He really is like dryer lint,” Matt mutters, and then flinches as said Dryer Lint tries to claw his way up Matt’s torso to his shoulder. “Ouch - fucking  _ hell  _ that hurts, what did you do, sharpen his claws?!” 

“Excuse you! Dryer Lint is her father’s daughter. She sharpens her own claws.”

Dryer Lint makes it to Matt’s shoulder and burrows into his collarbone. Matt, utterly clueless as to how to react, sits rock-still so as not to disturb him (her? Are they assigning gender to the kittens now? Seems simultaneously like something Wade would do at every possible opportunity and something Wade would shoot you for even suggesting, so Matt decides to go the noncommittal route).

Wade glances over and makes a cooing noise, reaching for his phone and snapping a picture. Matt makes a pained noise but can’t prevent the situation without disrupting the hamster’s slumber. “Don’t look at your phone and drive,” he snaps instead, and knows the moment the words come out it’s futile. Wade  _ did  _ literally almost just crash the car so he could take his hamsters out of his pockets, after all.

Wade, however, is a merciless little shit who lets nothing slide. “Fuck you, Redthew, I do what I want.”

“Don’t call me Redthew.”

“Why not?”

“‘Cause I told you so.” Matt pouts, petulant.

“Aw shucks,” Wade deadpans, “you know I always do as I’m told.” Matt  _ knows  _ he’s waggling his eyebrows (or lack thereof) - he’s using his  _ I think I’m being clever but I’m actually just a horny idiot who really wants to get in [insert object of affection of the week]’s pants  _ voice. Matt knows it well. “Also,  _ Matty _ , I notice you didn’t object to the ‘fuck you’ part of my initial comment -”

Google Maps pipes up out of nowhere to tell them their exit is in two miles. Wade’s so startled that the car does an impressive zigzag. Matt can actually smell rubber burning; when he informs Wade of this, however, he reacts with far too little surprised caution and far too much “HELL YEAH” for Matt’s liking. 

“WE’RE ALMOST READY FOR FORMULA 1, MATTY! AND WE’RE GONNA FUCKING WIN!”

Matt drops his head to the dashboard with a thunk. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Matt, am I not your best friend?”  
> “Nope.”  
> “Am I not your closest ally in the superhero field?”  
> “Nuh-uh.”  
> “You dearest acquaintance, the Chandler to your Joey?”  
> “Definitely not.”  
> “Hmm, you’re right, I’m definitely the Joey in this relationship. Hand me the pringles?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey there folks, it's me, ya boi, back at it with the a-few-hours-late update (did you know we have an UPDATE SCHEDULE?! every friday and monday night, est-ish, i think - i only ever really think about it in terms of aussie time so i'm trying my best to transpose in my head) and hoping that you enjoy this offering

**Wade**

“Are we anywhere near there yet, Wade?” Matt asks, with an obnoxious sigh, running his hands through his hair. 

“Are we anywhere near there yet, Wade?” Wade snarks back in his favourite mocking voice, swerving the car into a steep turn that causes Peter, previously sleeping, to slam into the window and jerk awake. It’s worth it for the slight green tinge that colours Matt’s cheeks.

“You could just say yes or no,” Matt mutters. Both kittens have fallen out of Peter’s lap and are now nibbling at the car’s carpet. Wade leaves it be, for now. If they gnaw through the floor of the car he might have another problem on his hands.

“We’re only like half an hour away,” Peter says, yawning as he checks his phone. “I followed the route on Google Maps to make sure we wouldn’t end up at the wrong Area 51. There are a lot of Area 51 ice cream parlours and stuff. Oh, hey, we should should stop at one of those on the way back too.”

“We’re already supposedly stopping at a carnival,” Matt says. “We can’t stop at ice cream too. If I’m missing from Hell’s Kitchen for too long, Danny Rand gets exited and pulls out his old Daredevil duplicate costume.”

“Woah, woah, woah,” Wade says, swerving around to stare at Matt (and not at the road, but like, that’s fiiine, right?), “Danny Rand has a duplicate suit?  _ Danny Rand _ has a duplicate suit?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Matt murmurs, attention focused elsewhere; he’s scrolled down the window a little and seems to be smelling the surrounding desert. “Gave it to him a while back.”

“Matt,” Wade says, turning back to look at the road again. “Matthew. Matthew Micycle Murdock -”

“- not my name -”

“- do you really mean to tell me that  _ Danny Rand _ has a duplicate Daredevil suit? The same man whom I once personally watched eat an entire churro stand’s stock in one sitting?”

“Think you were looking in the mirror, bud,” Matt says vaguely.

“No, no, I’ve bought out  _ enchilada _ stands. But churro stands? Zip. Zilch. Nada.”

“Don’t try to tell me you wouldn’t do the same thing if you hadn’t gotten a lifetime ban from most churro carts in New York City, Wade.”

Wade  _ really  _ wishes he had any hope of denying this, but Matt knows if he’s lying; Wade opens his mouth for a moment, closes it, and then starts over. “Matt, am I not your best friend?”

“Nope.”

“Am I not your closest ally in the superhero field?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“You dearest acquaintance, the Chandler to your Joey?”

“Definitely not.”

“Hmm, you’re right, I’m definitely the Joey in this relationship. Hand me the pringles?” Wade makes grabby hands for the pile of gas-station snack foods sitting at Matt’s feet, and Matt acquiesces. 

Now loudly chewing on pringles and only touching the wheel to occasionally correct their course if they go more than a foot off the sides of the single-lane dirt road, Wade continues with his soliloquy. “Matt, what I’m trying to say here, really, is -” chomp, chomp. Matt visibly winces in sync with Wade’s eating - “that I’m heartbroken,  _ heartbroken _ , that you would allow Danny Rand to have a duplicate Daredevil suit and yet I, loyal friend that I am, got a baton to the nose this past Halloween when I attempted to do justice to your charming personality in a Daredevil Halloween costume.”

“Mm,” Matt says, very obviously disinterested in the conversation. “Well, dunno what to say. I let Danny play at Daredevil for a bit while I was MIA after the Midland Circle debacle. Never asked him to give back the extra suit because I felt  _ he  _ understood when it was appropriate to use it. Danny’s a child at heart, but he has more respect for me than everyone in this car combined.”

“I respect you, Mr Murdock,” Peter protests. He’s digging his heels into the floor and tugging Dryer Lint up from where she’s dug all of her claws into the carpeting and is yowling, refusing to budge. 

“Oh, right,” Matt says. “I forgot you were still here for a moment. Your heartbeat is very fast, it sounds one of the hamsters.”

“Dear fucking goddamn lord,” Wade says, angling his chin skyward in a plea to the heavens. “Matty, it is not a fucking hamster.”

“Whatever you say.” Matt’s tone is one of unconcerned disbelief. Wade throws the now-empty pringles can at Matt’s head to alleviate some of the rage, but Matt just catches it. “Don’t throw trash out the window, it’s littering.”

Dryer Lint detaches from the carpeting. Peter goes flying backwards into the wall that separates the backseat from the trunk and collapses there, panting a little, while Dryer Lint scrambles away to make grocery bag forts in the trunk.

“I wasn’t aiming for the window, I was aiming for the  _ trashcan _ , dipshit,” Wade retorts. 

“The trashcan’s back there.” Matt throws the pringles can into the trash bag in the backseat. Wade gives him an utterly disbelieving look (not that anyone can really tell through his mask, and not that Matt could tell even if he was wearing precisely zero clothes - although Matt seemed pretty able to tell what he was thinking that one time -  _ ahem _ ) and seethes in silence.

Peter, perhaps sensing some tension, decides to record the moment for eternity and digs out his camcorder again. 

“Maybe I should record some of the actual raid,” he says, fiddling with the settings as it films. “Hey, this thing has some really cool settings - there’s a fisheye one. And this one says it’s for filming fireworks.”

“If you film while we’re in the actual raid we’ll end up in the Raft, Peter.”

“Worth it,” Wade mutters under his breath. Matt swats him on the shoulder in retaliation.

Peter holds the camera up to his eye and zooms in on Matt’s face. “Hey, this would make a great Vine. If only Vine wasn’t dead. Just a zoom in shot on your face in fisheye lens - you look really unimpressed, like, all the time, so it would work pretty well.”

“You wonder why I’m unimpressed,” Matt responds, “and meanwhile the tentacle alien just ate our  trash bag.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you let us know what you thought (either at our tumblrs, which i have mentioned before, or possibly hypothetically in a comment) we would die for you. we both instantly owe you a life debt that's just how things work around here


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “At least I acknowledge my inner queer,” Wade retorts, elbowing Matt in the side like he’s making a point.

**Matt**

Stan Lee, sitting where the trash bag was shortly before, gives a pitiful meow-burp. “If she ate our trash, why’re you still talking?” Wade asks nastily.

Matt reclines his seat and attempts to relax backwards, to indignant squawks from Peter, whose legs he’s currently crushing. “You already tried that joke, Wade.” 

“The classics never die.” Wade moves as if to begin listing things off on his fingers, before Matt grabs his hand and places it firmly back on the wheel.

Matt can hear the whir of a camera lens zooming in. He’s fairly certain Peter plans to film whatever altercation occurs, which is the only thing stopping him from breaking Wade’s wrist when the latter laces their fingers together; instead, he just breaks one finger. “Why couldn’t you have killed me the first time we met, Wade?”

“Which first time was this?” Wade returns evasively. “Sometime in the future when they bring Charlie Cox back into the MCU and put me in a pg13 flick with an ensemble cast that results in no one getting more than two lines? First shared title, I think that was that annual in ‘97? Suicide Kings - no, that was ‘09, that’s later.” He drums his fingers on the steering wheel, humming absently. “Pretty sure Wikipedia says our in-univesrse history predates our actual canon, so that’s open to interpretation, baby!”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Do I look like I care?”

“I don’t know, do you?”

“No. I do look gorgeous, though. Ravishing. Foxy. Luscious. _Pulchritudinous_ , that’s a good one -”

“I have it on good authority,” Matt interrupts, “you look like any other cosplayer wearing a red and black suit.” He could have said something about Wade’s skin, but that brings back a few too many memories he’s trying his damnedest to forget. 

“ _ Heh,  _ that’s what Captain America thought.”

Peter looks up from the camcorder; Matt can hear the rustle of his clothes as he shifts. “Oh, yeah, I saw that on the group chat. Did you really go on a date with Captain America, Mr. Deadpool?”

“Yes,” Wade says, in perfect unison with Matt’s ‘no’. “OK, he didn’t know it was me, but -”

“You deceived him into going to a bowling alley with you and proceeded to create excessive amounts of property damage - and I mean excessive by  _ your  _ standards,” Matt adds, predicting Wade’s objection. “I wouldn’t consider that a date. Plus, he thought you were a cosplayer the entire time.”

“Nah, I think he worked it out towards the end,” Wade corrects absently. “I kept getting group chat notifs on my phone right after he did. Also I have a distinctive voice, what is it, ‘ridiculously hollow -’? Beautiful enough to get canonical descriptions. And when I say ‘beautiful’ I don’t mean in a lovely way, you hear me, Red? Beautiful like -”

“Probably best if you stop there,” Matt interrupts pleasantly. He’s witnessed this particular trainwreck of thought before. It’s two parts self-destructive, one part sexual and one part full of vague, mocking references to trauma, and there is a Child in the back-seat eagerly recording this on video. 

Wade coughs. “Um.” For once, Matt is pretty sure his eyes are on the road (the most he can tell is that Wade’s head is turned straight forwards and he’s stiffened up, but the inference seems a safe one) and he mouths a silent thanks to the Lord for his mercy. Safe(ish) driving is safe(r) driving, regardless of the motivations behind it.

Peter clicks off his camcorder with a mournful sigh, switching it out for his cellphone. “Nothing interesting is happening in the group chat,” he reports. “Y’all are so boring.”

“You say ‘y’all’?” Wade says incredulously. “Like, unironically?”

“I can say what I want, Wade!”

“Just doing it for kicks, then,” Wade infers. “For the laughs. For the meme. For the Viiiine.” He’s very good at the obnoxious know-it-all voice he’s putting on; it sets Matt’s teeth on edge. What a dick. Remind Matt why he’s here, again?

“I can’t  _ believe  _ so many superheroes are queer,” Peter muses, a delicate awe in his voice. “It’s just so cool to know that you can, like - we can - grow up? And be successful? And tran - and, uh, be happy adults while fighting crime?”

Ah. Right. The inconvenient teenager that somehow has all of them wrapped around his little finger. 

“Like! Captain America is, uh, he’s. He’s not straight is what,” Peter fumbles, persevering admirably to the end of his sentence. “And, uh -”

“Scott-clops is very repressed and full of emotional constipation, but he’s definitely somewhat gay for Wolverine,” Wade adds knowingly.

Peter considers for a moment. “No, I think that’s just you.”

“At least I acknowledge my inner queer,” Wade retorts, elbowing Matt in the side like he’s making a point. (Right on the stab wound from a few days ago. Matt breathes through it.) “I’m a veritable beacon of gay, kid. And don’t get me started on emotions! I love ‘em, love sharing, sharing is caring and all -”

Matt laughs. 

“Fuck you too, Redthew! I’m great at feelings.”

“Didn’t know you had them,” Matt says bitingly. 

“Whatever you say, Red.” Wade’s mask shifts against his skin, and Matt guesses he’s pouting or smiling or - actually, he has no idea. “Anyway, you’re not one to talk.”

“What the hell does that mean, Wade?”

“Nothing,” Wade says. You know, like a liar.

Matt sighs. “Is this you insisting I’m … whatever … again?”

“You’re half in love with your best friend! Matty, one day you’re going to have to come to terms with your queerness and it’s better sooner than later, that’s all I’m saying,” Wade insists. “You’re worse than mutant Teddy Flood and that’s saying something.”

Peter coughs uncomfortably from the backseat, and Matt tries not to look too visibly startled. He’d all but forgotten Peter was there, which is impressive, given the  _ literal super-senses _ . “Maybe you should let him be, Wade,” Peter suggests; his voice is resolute but he’s a bit jumpy, his heartbeat all over the place. “Mr Murdock is obviously uncomfortable, and you’re just making things worse -”

“Whatever, kid,” Wade mutters dismissively. “Come on, Matt, you’re smarter than -”

“ _ In one hundred feet, your destination will be on the left, _ ” Google Maps pipes up from Wade’s phone in the cupholder. Matt flinches violently. He notes with some satisfaction that at least he wasn’t the only one startled by the sudden noise; the car swerves before Wade rights it, and Peter has managed to tear straight through his seatbelt in his haste to jump to the ceiling. Of the car. How? Why? And most importantly, what the  _ hell  _ would possess Peter to convince him that was a good idea?

“Spinal reflexes,” Peter says knowingly in answer to Matt’s question, “we were doing it in school. Or Spidey senses taking control before my actual brain does,” he adds thoughtfully, “maybe that’s it?” 

Matt can hear something ahead of them now, over the hum of the car and the bickering back-and-forth: music. He can’t place the tune, but it’s irritatingly catchy and the kind that quite frankly makes him wish Wade would drive the car right into another river. There aren’t nearly as many people as he was led to believe - as  _ Wade  _ led him to believe, and he turns to give the culprit an incredulous glare. “You said this was going to be a ‘big thing’, Wade! That we’d ‘blend right in’!”

“You’re blind and  _ high _ key hot, I’m either a burn victim or a masked maniac, and we have a baby-faced teenager in tow,” Wade points out, uncharacteristically reasonably. “We weren’t gonna blend in either way. Why, how many people are there?”

Matt frowns, trying to focus. “Like a hundred? Hundred fifty?”

“WHAT,” Peter gapes. He sounds like he’s been betrayed. 

“And there’s … music?”

“WHAT,” Wade gasps. He sounds like he’s actually surprised, which is a nice change.

“And they’re …” It takes Matt a second to place the meaning of the undulating motions of sound, and even then it doesn’t seem to make sense. “They’re moving around but not, uh, not in one direction? Like they’re -”

“They’re fucking PARTYING,” Wade seethes, just as Google informs them that their destination is on the left. “Fuck, Redthew! I came here to raid, not to run around in the desert like an obnoxious blond ninja and do the Cha Cha fucking Slide.”

The car jerks to a halt. Peter, who’s shifted to the other side after he broke one seatbelt, discovers that the right-side seatbelt is not any more amenable to sudden relocation to the car ceiling as the left-side seatbelt was. Matt jolts forwards and is - thank God - caught by his own before he goes through the windscreen. (He’s escaped the obnoxiously overt symbolism! No car crashes today!) Wade, positively vibrating with fury, elbows his own door open and storms out.

Matt gives himself ten seconds for a groan in which he expresses his constant Wade-induced rage, the stiffness in his legs from a two-day road trip with few breaks, his pre-caffeine vindictiveness, and his eternal irritation (actually, a lot of that’s Wade-induced, too. Matt really needs to get better friends) (oh, God, is he thinking of Wade as his  _ friend  _ now? What has the world come to?). Then he unlocks his own door, grabs his cane from the footwell, and begins following Wade towards the source of the noise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> somewhere on this chapter (on our original google doc), i commented "i was very proud of my cable namedrop but i think this is better :'(". if anyone wants the context/og paragraph behind that, lmk lol - leave us a comment, or you can message us on tumblr at [desultorydenouement](desultorydenouement.tumblr.com) and/or [hoarding-citrine](hoarding-citrine.tumblr.com) <3


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “This is what you people call a raid?” Wade shouts into the silence following the speakers’ brief burst of 130-decibel static. “I’ma head in to see the aliens, anyone with me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter, but it's here <3

**Wade**

They’re. They’re playing the Cha Cha fucking Slide and if that doesn’t bring back memories then he’s just another fuckwit ambling around with arms trailing behind him like shitty, badly streamlined wings. Naruto running, he knows. Nardo? The crowd looks lame as  _ fuck _ \- oh, hey, is that Jared and Tom over there holding hands? - the way they’re ambling about. If this is what’s considered a raid in the US he’s going back to motherfucking Canada - at least they have normal weather there, none of this “desert” shit he keeps coming across (and trying to figure out how to destroy; it’d be for the good of the population, really, but the best he can think of is a team of bulldozers and he can’t think of anyone willing to join him in bulldozing a  _ reasonably sized _ \- not “too huge to be realistic”,  _ Cable _ , take that - swath of land between Nevada and Colorado - hmm, Matt might help if he came up with a plausible excuse, and he really wants to test just how good at driving the blind guy can be. Maybe Frank Castle? He has a lot of unresolved anger that would probably be good to take out on a few hundred miles of desert). 

He’s storming up (no storms in the goddamn DESERT) to the speakers, which are pretty impressive if he takes notice. Tall as his hip, and currently they’re loud enough to deafen him; heh maybe the ASL would finally get used more than just the occasions when he happens to fall into the same dumpster as Depressed/Elder Hawkeye. Speakers must be pretty expensive, so maybe this FAKE-ASS RAID is sponsored by Batman or Stark or some other goddamn fucking millionaire. 

Weak. He’s gonna show them what a  _ raid  _ looks like. 

Snatching the cords from the speakers he practices his bellowing of orders - like Spec Forces all over again - “this is what you people call a raid?” he shouts into the silence following the speakers’ brief burst of 130-decibel static, “I’ma head over and  _ in  _ to see the aliens, anyone with me?”

A cough. Wade whips around to glare the cough-er into submission. It’s a five-foot kid, younger than Pete probably (although fuck does Peter look younger than he is), dressed in eye-searing colours (say what you want about the predictable red-black contrast but at least it’s not a graphic designer’s goddamn  _ arch-nemesis _ like this kid is, neon orange and green and pink) and with a voice higher-pitched than a fucking Pikachu ( _ heh _ ). “Uh, dude … what are you doing?”

“Fucking raiding Area 51 like I came here to do!” Wade retorts, and then adds (context is always best!) “Gotta find some dope-ass MacGuffin aliens for my kitten to beat up with her tentacles. You know what a MacGuffin is? It’s when an otherwise mostly pointless item, like an alien punching bag, is like a placeholder object of des -”

“- okay, but can you leave our music alone?” the kid entreats. 

Wade’s somewhat impressed with the kid’s nonchalance in the face of ‘masked maniac shouting about alien tentacle kittens’, so he takes pity. “Anyone gonna come with me or am I on my fucking own?”

Silence. 

“Matty?”

He’s met with a blank-faced stare from a Matt who is currently doing his best to pretend not to know him. It’s an irritatingly good facade. (And that’s saying something when it comes to Matty, whose response to “You’re  _ blind _ ?” was “What’s ‘blindness’?” which is totally ‘Who’s Morales?’esque except no, that’s Pete’s job, and ‘cause he’s mostly MCU he’s pretty much a 1610 rip-off renamed and redesigned  _ anyway _ , but Matt’s the one who wears an ‘I’m Not Daredevil’ hoodie every Christmas so really, how the hell can he  _ pretend  _ to be so utterly disgusted and confused by Wade? -  _ oh wait! _ )

“Pete, then - you gotta be with me here?”

The kid’s staring at the ground, avoiding his eyes. He’s still got half a seatbelt stuck to his hand. Little traitor. What happened to ‘omg yes Wade I’m  _ so  _ in we have to raid Area 51 for the meme and find some dope-ass aliens for Stan Lee to beat up’? (Wade’s paraphrasing, but surely he’s accurately conveying the general gist.) Red’s probably rubbing off on Peter. Next thing you know, the kid’s gonna have four broken ribs and be bruised thirty different colours and still insist on carrying out his everyday activities. Okay, so maybe Wade’s not perfectly innocent in that department either, but at least he has an  _ excuse _ . Matt, on the other hand, is just an idiot. With no regard for his own safety. It’s a rule, now, when they work together - if Wade’s not allowed to kill people, Matt’s not allowed to get himself killed. Or have opinions on first aid. Fair’s fair, after all. 

Wade sobers at the notion of their chaotic power duo, torn asunder by the cruel hands of fate and Matt’s unwillingness to charge recklessly into a top-secret government facility to steal aliens that may or may not be there. “Fuck. Fine,” he grumbles. “No ‘you and me against the world’, huh, Matt? And here I thought we were Marvel’s version of Destiel.” He shoves the cord back into the speaker.  **_LAST CHANCE TO GET FUNKY_ ** blares from it in a sucker-punch of sound, and Wade’s pretty sure that’s his eardrums actually shatter. He sees Matt stumble as if pushed.

“Last chance is fucking right,” Wade mumbles under his breath, “you coming or not, Red?”

Matt, from fifty feet away or so, waves a disoriented middle finger in Wade’s general direction. Wade curses under his breath and makes a run for the fence. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jared and tom are back uwu
> 
> the avengers are chillin in the living room, watching the news. this footage comes up. "my kitten to beat up with her tentacles," wade says. every avenger in the room simultaneously gives carol a this-is-your-fault look.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You've got. A cactus."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> slightly longer chapter this time <3

**Wade**

As the fence starts to draw nearer, Wade does a running jump and seizes a handful of chain link. His foot stings a little, but he doesn’t look down. His arm makes a funny snapping sound, but he disregards it and starts to claw his way upwards. Once he reaches the top, he hauls himself over, but loses control as he tries to climb the other way down and slips, falling twenty feet and landing headfirst. He hears half the bones in his body snap. Wasn’t that supposed to be  _ Matt’s  _ angsty Tumblr tagline?

Lying in a crumpled heap on the sandy earth, Wade shakes his arms back into place and then uses them to snap his spinal cord into position. By the time he’s standing again, most of his bones seem to be in the right places, though his foot is still stinging for some godforsaken reason.

Wade scans the surrounding area and does a quick head-count, just in case. Huh - he’s acquired a Peter, all decked out in Spider-Man suit, which probably isn’t great for his branding but honestly that’s the kid’s problem, not Wade’s. Just two of them, then. One less than planned for (if Wade can honestly convince himself that he didn’t plan on Matt’s nope-ing out of the whole clusterfuck because he ‘doesn’t do teams’ or some shit again. Emphatic way to object to orgies, but whatever. Redthew’s ‘brave’, ‘without fear’, but he loves chickening out of Wade’s plans). He can make that work.

“Just you and me then, Pete,” he says

“Mr Deadpool. Wade. You’ve, uh,” Peter starts to say. He’s staring at Wade’s foot, which still twinges, and tilting his head to the side as he blinks. (Wade needs to ask him -  _ later  _ \- how he gets his suit eyes to do that shuttery blinking thing.) “You’ve got. A cactus.”

Wade glances down and realizes that somewhere along the road he’s stepped on a small, spiky cactus which has stabbed its way through the sole of his boot and into his foot. That explains the twinge in his foot, anyway. He hops on one leg for a moment and pulls it out, appraises it, and stuffs it into a pocket for later in case Stan Lee needs a chew toy. 

Next moment there’s a breath of air, a change in the environment; Wade’s instincts register it before the rest of him, and he whirls and pins Matt against the concrete side of one of the buildings. Redthew ducks out, probably snaps something - bone? ligament? - in Wade’s wrist, and graces Wade and Peter with an unimpressed frown. “Don’t forget me,” he says as if he actually cares, but Wade knows  _ full well  _ he’s only here ‘cause he doesn’t want Wade to get the kid killed. (As if he would; Wade’s only known Peter a couple months, but if anything happened to him Wade would kill everyone in the room and then himself.) Still, Wade laughs, because of course his plan was accurate - he designed it while listening to LOONA on loop and gorging on Pringles! He takes a moment to appreciate Matt’s ass ( _ don’t lie and say you wouldn’t do the same _ , he cajoles you, his gaze shifting admonishingly to yours) in his OG/Walmart/bargain store discount look - clingy under-armour, or whatever the shit it’s called, and a dumbass black bandanna that makes Matt look like a wannabe pirate. (Dread Pirate Roberts?) Apparently running back to the car, changing clothes, and running back to climb the fence without being seen, all in an astonishingly small amount of time, is another one of Matt’s superpowers. Maybe it’s his mutant ability. Wade wouldn’t fucking know (because no matter how hard he wishes, he isn’t a mutant but just fucking  _ watch _ him, he’ll be an X-Man if it kills him forty times) (mutate, baby!) (depending on your canon - do recessive genes qualify you to join Professor Chuck’s favourite band of merry men?). 

(XXX-Man.  _ Heh _ .)

“Okay, gang!” Wade trills. “Come on,  _ vamanos _ ; everybody, let’s go. Up, up and away! Matt, you can be our caboose.”

“I’m not a - why do I gotta go last?”

“You’re the prettiest.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“What, you want me to tell you again?”

“For the love of God -”

Peter clears his throat loudly and Wade jumps; Matt doesn’t, and he looks irritatingly smug about this. He’s like a cat that got into the fucking cream, though that’s not super accurate cause Wade doesn’t keep cream in his apartment. Matt should see (hear?) Dryer Lint’s smug-ass smirk when she manages to get at the butter, though. Or Stan Lee’s shit-eating grin when she falls into the dumpster in the alley adjacent and straight-up eats the entire fucking thing; boy was  _ that  _ one fun to cover up. No supernatural alien kittens here, no sir, just a usual everyday dumpster theft; you must’ve seen the news lately, crime rates at an all-time high, masked menaces running round left right and centre so is it really so implausible that one of them would stoop to steal an entire dumpster? Probably it was one of them red ones - and  _ shit, fuck, Wade left Dryer Lint and Stan Lee in the car _ .

Peter says “Stop flirting” like it’s a proclamation that’s taken him some effort to work up the courage to say, but Wade’s busy checking all his deux-es-plot-convenience pockets just in case one of the bastard not-cats snuck in while he wasn’t looking; nothing, nada, zilch. 

He curses under his breath.

“We’re not flirting,” Matt snaps like it’s a ridiculous concept (really, Matty dearest?  _ Really _ ?) but then he turns to Wade and he seems somewhat legitimately concerned when he says “What’s wrong?” Emphasis on the  _ somewhat _ , and Wade knows full well there’s hard-and-fast limits on how much Red’ll let himself care about any of them but  _ especially  _ Wade aka ‘the eternal thorn in [his] fucking side’, but it’s nice to know Matty will at least notice when Wade starts cussing  _ quietly _ \- something’s really up or why else would he stoop to being  _ quiet _ ? (Wade makes it a point never to be quiet. Branding is important these days; you gotta put forward a cohesive front or your comics straight-up won’t sell, and Wade’s got that new run he’s kind of fond of. Thompson’s ‘monster’ idea is fun. So sue him.)

(Or don’t actually, because Matt said he won’t help out next time Wade gets in legal trouble and he can consider that a favour paid off but  _ ouch _ , Matty, no love for one of your longest allies in the superhero field?)

“I left the kittens in the car,” Wade wails.

Peter gasps, scandalised (Wade’s been training him in his shocked, disgusted gasps; gotta tread that line between mocking and serious to make it perfect). Matt shrugs, and his expression doesn’t change. “One of your hamsters is an alien from outer space with tentacles for a mouth,” he says, “and the other one, uh, it’s very cool too. I’m sure it’ll be fine in a car for a few hours.”

“It’s a  _ hot  _ car! We’re in the  _ desert _ !”

“Wade, it’s September.”

“They’ll overheat!”

“Uh-huh,” Matt says, unimpressed. “Are we going or not? I’m only here to stop anyone from getting killed -”

“YES LET’S GO FIND SOME ALIENS,” Peter shrieks. He lifts an energy drink to his mouth, one Wade hasn’t previously noticed, more fool him; Wade swats it away and over the fence. The kid is nonplussed. He charges away, searching for a door - yeah, whatever, but unfortunately he’s the only one here with  _ actual  _ super strength (in this ‘verse, at least), so he’s the only one who’s really capable of breaking through the concrete. Fuck, they’re subject to his whims now when it comes to direction. This is thirty different kinds of strategic nightmare. It’s perfect.

Matt rubs his temples for a moment through his shitty mask. “And now we follow the kid?”

“And now we follow the kid,” Wade confirms. He grins, pulls his katanas from their sheaths, and skips into Area 51.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can't believe people like our stupid fic baby im crying ?? ?? ? it means the world to me tbh (-anix/fensandmarshes)  
> consider ..... maybe ......... comments????? hahaha jk ......... unless ...


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t like this,” Matt says. “Where are the alarms?”

**Matt**

Peter’s vibrating again, the excitement of adventure mixing with the energy drink and producing pure, undiluted adrenaline. His heart is audibly jackhammering even as he runs along the concrete walls at least twelve feet ahead of Matt. Matt wishes Wade hadn’t chucked the energy drink away; he could’ve used a shot or two of adrenaline. He’s still exhausted from the car ride - he slept a few hours, but far too few to be considered a healthy amount. These days, whenever he dozes off in a moving car he wakes almost immediately to a cold chill like that of saltwater, running down his nose and throat and choking him. 

They’re going to all get arrested, Matt supposes, but at least there’s peace and quiet at the Raft. He’s more concerned about Peter. Not many churro stands or old ladies to rescue inside a locked-down jail with questionable civil rights accountability. If Wade went there, he’d probably talk the jailer to death and escape. Matt’s not so sure about Peter.

The building they’re walking by is the biggest one, as far as Matt can tell, with concrete walls that are steel reinforced. It’s hard to hear anything inside the it through the walls, but Matt tries anyway. He focuses on the ground below him, unnerved. There’s something  _ wrong _ about the way his footsteps rattle around for a moment below ground every time he takes a step. They’re standing on something, far below ground - some sort of bunker below their feet - but it’s too deep for him to tell what’s inside. 

Peter interrupts Matt’s train of thought with a triumphant yell and a crashing noise. He’s found a door, a small sliding steel one embedded in the concrete wall, and is forcibly opening it, locks be damned. Matt and Wade run to catch up; Matt half expects blaring alarms to pierce the quiet, but nothing happens. 

Matt can hear what’s beyond the door more clearly now that it’s open. It’s a hallway, narrow and lined by echoing tile on each side; electric lights hum faintly from the ceiling above them. 

“Snazzy,” Wade says sarcastically, unimpressed. Matt elbows him in the side. Wade elbows back and Matt tries to punch him in the nose. Wade grabs Matt’s fist before it hits his face and interlaces their fingers like a couple on a date holding hands. Matt stomps on Wade’s foot - which is bleeding through the sole of his boot, for some reason - and Wade yelps and lets go. That didn’t escalate quickly or anything.

Peter’s already in the hallway so Matt follows. Everything about the room is perfectly uniform, smoothly paved, except for a spot in the ceiling across where a tile is missing, presumably to make space for a fire sprinkler.

“I don’t like this,” Matt says. “Where are the alarms?”

“Looks like someone ate them,” Wade says, flippant. He digs into one of his pockets, pulls out an apple, and starts munching at it.

“What?”

“LKSJNCKNJ,” Wade clarifies, through a mouthful of apple. He finishes it by stuffing it into his mouth whole and swallowing, core and all. Matt might actually hear Wade’s jaw unhinge as he eats it. 

“I don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I’m saying that it  _ looks like someone ate them _ , dipshit,” Wade repeats, gesturing to the gap in the tile for fire sprinklers. “Why else would there be a big-ass hole in the ceiling?”

“A lot of fucking reasons, Wade,” Matt says, antsy, “but not that one.”

“Oh, I dunno,” Peter says, stopping to look at that part of the ceiling. There’s a slight frown in his voice. “It does look a little weird. All torn up. Could be something ate it.”

“Peter gets it,” Wade says, digging in his pocket for another apple. “Hey - maybe Venom ate it!” He chuckles at his own joke. Matt does not. The only thing this situation needs in order to get worse is a Venom. 

“Hey, relax,” Wade says, sensing Matt’s discomfort. “Look on the bright side, that Francesco Mattina venomized Daredevil art was badass, so if Venom eats you you’ll go out in style.”

He seems to think he’s found another apple, because he pulls it out and takes a big chomp out of it. A moment later he starts gagging and choking and spits it onto the ground. It takes a moment for Matt to realize what the problem is.

“Wade, did you just try to eat a cactus?”

“Wrong pocket,” Wade laments, reaching up to pull a needle out of his tongue. 

“You … okay, Wade?” Peter asks, concerned. Wade waves him off.

“Thine - uh, fine. My heart is forever broken, though, and it’s all Matty’s fault as usual.” Wade starts walking again (“And it’s all your fault, Redthew; I thought you were the Cas to my Dean, a bit less angelic I guess, and here you are abandoning me? Only showing up because you worry for  _ his  _ safety? That’s like if Ted only showed up in the knockoff TARDIS phone booth after Bill had kidnapped Ted’s brother or some shit!”), pausing to pick up the now slightly dented cactus and stuff it back in his pocket. Peter follows, excitement renewed.

“I think we’re, uh, maybe not quite worried enough about - about whatever’s eating the ceiling tiles?” Matt reiterates, dismayed, as the other two walk nonchalantly away. His concerns are disregarded as Peter reaches the door at the end of the hall and pries it open. He walks through and Wade, who follows him and props it ajar with his foot, waves at Matt to hurry and catch up.

Idiots.

“If Venom possesses me, first one I’m eating is you,” Matt hisses to Wade as he passes through the doorway. 

Wade winks back; Matt’s pretty much memorised what that sounds like now, the overemphasised brush of eyelid on skin that’s just forceful enough that it has to be deliberate. “You can  _ eat  _ me any time, sugar.”

“Fuck off, Wade.”

“ _ Gladly _ , Red, whenever you want. You only gotta ask.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Do I, though?”

Matt sighs, focusing instead on the room around them (as opposed to certain repressed memories he definitely doesn’t have); it’s a long, large hall of some kind. Maybe a hangar? Everything echoes a little too much, simultaneously slightly too muted and slightly too loud. Glass, Matt guesses. The hall’s lined with structures in two rows; he can’t work out if they’re identical, but they seem pretty similar in terms of general shape and size. They’re twice as tall as him, and maybe thirty feet long; almost like -

“SPACESHIPS,” Peter shouts, already clambering up the side of one; Wade attempts to follow and slides to the ground, so they’re chrome or something similar and Peter is being, uh, doing whatever it is that he does that lets him climb up things. “Hey, Mr. Murdock, these look a lot like some of the stuff they have back with the Avengers,” Peter calls from atop one of the structures. (Matt hisses his obligatory  _ fuck the Avengers  _ under his breath.) “Like, some of these buttons look like ones in the training compound, and some of the broken spaceship parts they’ve collected that I’m … probably not supposed to know about actually, don’t tell Mr. Stark, I was just looking for Boh because she ran away from me -”

“A kitten after my own heart,” Wade calls back absently from where he’s examining the bottom of the spaceship. 

“Peter, come down from there,” Matt calls.  _ Honestly _ , it’s like herding cats. He hurries over and bodily drags Wade away before the latter begins prying up plating with his swords.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let us know what you thought in the comments or message us at [hoarding-citrine](https://hoarding-citrine.tumblr.com) or [desultorydenouement](https://desultorydenoument.tumblr.com) on tumblr!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Pretty sure I can hear Venom eating straight through metal that’s a foot thick,” Matt spits, letting go of Wade and shoving him away. “Or thicker, I can’t fucking tell. This is your fault.”  
> “And here _my_ internal dialogue was concerned with the fact that Pete nearly had Stan Lee as a kitten rather than the comparably mild-mannered and much less tentacle-y Boh-bara,” Wade returns, unconcerned.

_ Wait. _

Matt stiffens, turning his attention from trying to get Wade and Peter to behave to the sound of crumpling metal somewhere distant. It’s too far to make out any kind of heartbeat, but he’s very certain that that is  _ thick metal plating being crumpled up like paper _ . Wade can probably feel him tense, because he stops struggling against Matt’s grip and very deliberately reaches for a gun at his hip. “What’s up, Matty?”

“Pretty sure I can hear Venom eating straight through metal that’s a foot thick,” Matt spits, letting go of Wade and shoving him away. “Or thicker, I can’t fucking tell. This is your fault.”

“And here  _ my  _ internal dialogue was concerned with the fact that Pete nearly had Stan Lee as a kitten rather than the comparably mild-mannered and much less tentacle-y Boh-bara,” Wade returns, unconcerned. “Ya really dodged a bullet there, kid - by the way, how good are your reflexes? Can you dodge bullets? I’ve always wanted to know if you can  _ dodge  _ ‘em ‘cause depending on your canon I can sometimes, like,” he waves his hands in the air in ways that are thoroughly unhelpful in any way, “Origins: Wolverine that shit up but I seriously doubt I can  _ dodge  _ -” 

“ _ No one’s _ worried about the implication that Venom is loose in Area 51?” Matt interrupts.

“This tech is so cool,” Peter yells from where he’s managed to find a way inside one of the spaceships. 

“No one has any worries  _ at all  _ about -”

“Cool it, Red,” Wade drawls. “Aren’t’cha the man without fear or something? Ohoh, now I’m picturing that meme where the guy has the shirt that says ‘I have no fears’, and then -”

“I think it’s fairly reasonable to be scared of being possessed and killing you all,” Matt says coolly.

“- ‘I have one fear’! Redthew, you knew a meme! I’m so proud of you?”

“What the hell are you on about?” Matt replies, totally bemused.

“I’m getting you a shirt,” Wade says decisively. “You can wear it under your ‘I’m Not Daredevil’ hoodie.”

Matt turns away, exasperated. “Why the hell do I put up with you.”

“If I knew that, Matty, I’d be off doing something with my life,” Wade chirps earnestly in response.

“I don’t think -”

“Guys?” Peter calls. He’s climbed back on top of the spaceship and his body is angled towards the floor on the other side of it, as if he’s staring towards something neither Wade nor Matt can see (shocker about that latter part). “Why’s there a cat in here?”

Matt and Wade exchange a trepidatory glance (or, Wade glances at Matt, and Matt has a horrible sense of trepidation that he projects onto Wade as the reasoning behind the motion because they’re in sync sometimes, so sue him). “DON’T TOUCH THE CAT, PETER,” Matt yells. His own voice echoes, and he winces for a second at the shudders it sends through his perception. No more yelling while he’s surrounded by glass and chrome.

Wade walks around the spaceship and drops to a crouch. Matt follows. Wade’s still, head turned towards the - well, it doesn’t seem like a cat, not  _ really _ , more a particularly large hamster - and there’s pensiveness in his voice when he murmurs “I wonder if this is -”

The hamster roars with the fierceness of a thousand stars and grabs Wade’s arm with some mouth-tentacles.

“So that’s a yes then,” Wade says, voice slightly strangled. Losing an arm will do that to ya. 

Matt backs away from the tentacle hamster, giving precisely 0 fucks about Wade’s safety. Peter, having jumped back up on top of the nearest spaceship at the first sign of tentacles, peers concernedly down at Wade’s bleeding stump arm. “Are you okay, Mr. Deadpool?” he calls. His heart sounds like another goddamn hamster. 

When. Will Matt. Be free. Of all. The. Fucking. Hamsters. 

“I’ll be fine,” Wade sighs. “I liked this arm. It was a good arm.”

Maybe Matt already died and he’s gone to hell. This is probably his eternal punishment.

“Oh, the things I did with this arm,” Wade bemoans, before doing a double-take in Peter’s direction and tacking on hastily “Like pat … my kittens. And. Pay my taxes.”

“You gonna be alright to fight Venom, Wade?” Matt asks begrudgingly. 

“I won’t have to fight Venom,” Wade coos in return, “not when there’s a big strong  _ man  _ like you around to protect me.” 

Matt would have preferred boiling oil.

Peter claps his hands over his ears, coughing pointedly. Matt waves his middle finger in Wade’s direction and power-walks on through the hangar - he doesn’t like it here, where all the echoes and glass mess with his proprioception and everything is slightly too loud to be comfortable. “Let’s  _ go _ ,” he growls. 

Wade sighs and follows, leaving a trail of blood in his wake; Peter, when he trails meekly down from the spaceship, pokes uncomfortably at it with his toe. “Is that … hygienic?”

“If they have Chitauri spaceships, they have fancy sci-fi cleaning tech,” Wade says flippantly, waving him off. 

“... And should we just?” Peter’s voice cracks. “Be leaving? The tentacle alien cat? In the middle of the hangar? After it ate your arm?”

Wade spins on his heel and faces Peter, placing his hands on his hips. “Do you have a problem with tentacle alien cats, young man?”

“... No???” Peter doesn’t sound convinced.

“Tentacle alien cats are huma - wait, no. Peop - I guess that depends on your definition, fuck. Inhabitants of Ear - NO. SHIT. They’re  _ creatures _ just like the rest of us,” Wade lectures sternly. “And you’re to respect them, you hear me?”

Peter turns in Matt’s direction. “Is he messing with me?” 

Matt elects not to answer.

“I have a very good friend who  _ happens _ to be a tentacle alien cat,” Wade continues, going from the angry-mom pose (hands on hips) to the angry-dad pose (arms crossed) and clearing his throat. “So. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I’m? Sorry?”

“Repeat after me,” Wade instructs. “ _ I will respect any and all tentacle alien cats I meet. _ ”

“Uh, I will -” Peter takes a step backwards. “You’re having me on.”

“My best friend is a tentacle alien cat,” Wade gasps. “Are you implying that I would ever disrespect her in any way?”

“I thought  _ I  _ was your best friend,” Matt grumbles. “Let’s hurry this up, I don’t want to be here when whatever’s eating the ceiling arrives.”

“You jealous for my attention, Matty?” 

“You wish.”

“And I’ve made no secret of this fact,” Wade replies, slinging his arm around Matt’s shoulders to not-so-subtly grope his deltoids, “your point?”

Another rippling, screeching metal sound echoes through the hangar. This time, it’s close enough for Wade and Peter to hear it, but Matt still can’t pick up any kind of heartbeat or signs of life, which unnerves him enough that he doesn’t take the obvious bait and tell Wade that  _ that _ was in fact his point. It hurts his pride a little (and more every time he does it), but he defers to Wade: “Can we still get out before that gets here?” he asks, curling his hands into fists.

He hadn’t realised just how used he’s gotten to his Daredevil armour; he feels loose and overexposed without it. It’s been a while since he’s gone with just the long sleeves and bandanna. He knows, logically, that he’s faster without stiff body armour that hinders his movements; at the moment, with the very real threat of something-or-other-that-can-eat-through-government-level-metal bearing down on them, he decides that he Does Not Like the trade-in. 

The tentacle hamster monster makes a  _ mrrp _ sound and begins licking one of its paws. All three of them try and fail to conceal their flinches.

Wade draws away from Matt to stand stock-still and (for once) very, very silent. Matt’s been praying for this for years, and it’s still incredibly unnerving. “Any thoughts?” he hedges.

Wade hums, guesses something (his heart-rate spikes before settling again), relaxes. “I don’t think we need to worry.”

“ _ What _ ,” Peter squeaks. “I thought something was eating the metal?”

“Oh, definitely.” Wade, rolling his shoulder in circles and rubbing his stump with his other arm, strolls carelessly out of the hangar through a massive bay door. “But, like I said, no need to worry - hey, this is just another hangar!” He stamps his foot in irritation. “What is this place, just a fucking spaceship landfill? I came here for aliens, so  _ where are the aliens? _ ”

His voice echoes off the walls of the hangar (less glass, thankfully), giving Matt a clearer idea of what lies in the next room. It’s a massive tiled hall, and more spaceships sit in neat rows. Most of them are Chitauri. These seem more like oversized bugs than anything that could fly, riddled with cracks and crevices like mismatched armor. They smell of dust and disuse - Matt could imagine them scuttling like cockroaches, but not flying. The few spaceships that have some self-respecting resemblance towards anything that could achieve significant airtime are placed in a neat row directly to Wade’s left.

Matt follows Wade and Peter into the new room, strolling along between the rows of spaceships. He’s trying to get a clearer idea of the room’s layout, maybe find an exit, when his attention is caught by the same sound from before - metal ripping as if torn away. It’s closer, now, coming from somewhere directly above them. 

All three of them stop walking and slowly look up at the ceiling some thirty or so feet above. Matt instinctively steps closer to Peter, as if he has any chance at protecting the kid from whatever hellish creature seems to be stalking them. (Dimly he notices that Wade’s done the same.)

The metal ripping sound comes again and Matt can hear the teiling ciles tearing apart. Bits of plaster and metal parts start to rain from the scene of destruction, and the stifling smell of dust fills the air. 

As Matt is trying not to choke on the fine particles, something larger falls from the newly formed gap in the ceiling, landing with a small thump on the floor in front of them. It’s a bundle of fur that’s making an unheavenly screeching noise, clustering the hangar with its dual ricocheting, staccato heartbeats, somehow faster than Peter’s though only just. It takes Matt a moment to place where he’s encountered the creature before, and then it uncurls and becomes two bundles instead of one. Dryer Lint scrambles up to Wade and starts to climb his leg. Stan Lee hunches up into a ball, bereft without her passenger.

“You broke into government property, impersonated Venom, destroyed possibly hundreds of dollars’ worth of ceiling tiles, and scared the shit outta Matty? That’s my girl,” Wade coos, and starts coddling Dryer Lint. “Stan Lee, c’mere.”

Stan Lee doesn’t come here. She’s standing stock-still, ears pricked, as if she’s staring at something behind both of them.

… Ah. 

Shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> our tumblrs are desultorydenouement and hoarding-citrine, i am very sleepy and dislike existence, and anyone who's made it this far is a wonderful person we are both very grateful for <3 have a LOVELY day


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I’m fairly sure Clint will show you the way out if you don’t piss him off.”  
> “Not pissing people off isn’t really our forte, ma’am,” Matt says as tactfully as he can manage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahahahhahahaajlsekljjioufs

**Matt**

Matt didn’t hear her coming, and he’s certain there weren’t any footsteps, but he can smell someone’s presence now like a flash of ozone - a figure standing behind them, positioned like it’s descended from one of the ships, arms crossed. There’s a tinge of electricity in the air, and a scent almost like something’s burning. He pivots and fixes the figure with his best approximation of an intimidating glare. The tentacle hamster from the previous hangar is sitting at its feet, but it stands and trots over to Stan Lee, tail in the air; it starts purring and then makes a rumbling noise like thunder.

“The  _ fuck _ ,” she says, “are you three doing here?” 

Matt recognises her voice, and regrets every decision he’s ever made that’s brought him here.

Of all the people they had to run into while infiltrating one of the highest security government facilities in the world, it had to be Carol Danvers. The woman who’s probably capable of destroying this entire facility with just a glare if she tries hard enough. The woman who happens to have a major grudge against Wade. (Admittedly, the definite article in that sentence is somewhat misleading - Matt’s pretty sure every single vigilante or superhero in this universe has a major grudge against Deadpool for one reason or another. Matt himself has about thirty. Regardless, this woman could kill them all,  _ literally  _ without lifting a finger, so he feels it’s warranted.)

“Uh, hi Captain Danvers,” Peter says, and tries for an awkward wave but gives up and drops his hand to his side. “It’s nice to see you?”

“I don’t even want to pretend that you could have a good excuse for being here,” Danvers says. “Why is it that when something happens, it is  _ always  _ you three?”

“Aaaa, McGonagall,” Wade wheezes quietly, waving his finger between the two of them, “I see what you did there -”

Danvers crosses the distance between them in three long strides and punches him in the stomach. Matt can sympathise. Wade goes flying backwards and crashes into something - a Chitauri ship, probably - with a wheeze. While Wade stands and starts limping back over to the group, Danvers reaches up to where a hand towel is draped across her shoulder and wipes the engine grease off her hands. Matt guesses she was working on one of the ships. 

“You realize that you could end up in the Raft for this,” Danvers points out.

“I did point that out, yes,” Matt says, trying to be the voice of reason. “The objection was overruled.”

“I held him in contempt of court,” Peter whispers.

Matt steps to the side. Peter steps with him. “Are you  _ hiding  _ behind me?”

“NO?”

“Peter,” Danvers interrupts, “could you please explain why you thought this …  _ expedition  _ … was in any way a good fucking idea?”

Wade taps both of their shoulders, five times each in quick succession, and saves Peter the trouble of answering by calling a team huddle; the three of them awkwardly shuffle a few paces from Danvers and face each other.

“Okay, so this isn’t ideal,” Wade confesses.

“ _ NOT IDEAL?  _ We’re all going to get put in the Raft!!” Matt hisses. 

“Worse,” Peter says, distraught. “Your friend Ms. Jones is going to be really disappointed that I got caught.”

“We need to work on your priorities, kid,” Matt tells him.

“Can we get back on the topic at hand?” Wade demands. “Captain Marvel is standing right over there and she’s very angry and she’s going to kill us or quite possibly outsource the job to her flerken!”

They all glance over at Danvers. She’s staring at them. “I can hear you, you know,” she says. “You’re talking very loudly.”

Wade glares at her and then rejoins the huddle.

“Look, this is all under control,” Wade insists. 

“I fail to see how that’s true, Wade,” Matt snaps.

“You fail to see a lot of things, Red,” Wade fires back.

“Oh come on, that wasn’t even  _ original  _ - _ ” _

“Please don’t fight, Mr Daredevil, Mr Deadpool,” Peter says, by means of intervention. “A good team establishes open and respectful communication -”

“ _ CAN WE GET BACK ON TOPIC _ ,” Wade hisses, very loudly. “Look, as I was  _ saying _ before  _ mister _ fetish gear over there interrupted me, this is all under control. I have a plan. We just have to ask Stan Lee to eat off-brand Shazam and the problem will be solved.”

“Good luck with that, Wilson,” Danvers interrupts.

“What part of team huddle don’t you understand, Danvers?” Wade demands, pointing a finger at her. “Stop interrupting and we’ll be done in a minute!”

“No, I mean,” Danvers says, nodding her head at Stan Lee, “Good luck getting your flerken to help you now.”

Stan Lee, Matt registers dimly, is draped over the other flerken cat like a limp rag, purring. 

Wade gasps. “TRAITOR.”

“Mrrrp.”

“I THOUGHT YOU CARED FOR ME.”

“Mrrrrrrrr.”

“I THOUGHT WE WERE FAMILY, STAN LEE.”

“Meh.”

The larger flerken cat - Goose? - fixes Wade with a glare and lets out a loud growl that sounds like a thousand screaming demons and/or a blender on high power. Wade growls right back at it.

“Please stop growling at my flerken so we can talk this out like adults,” Danvers says. “Look. Peter, I know you’re a good kid. You mean well. Matt, I know you try to do the right thing with your whole ... Hell’s Kitchen vigilante demon thing. Wilson -”

There’s a nasty silence for a moment and then she clears her throat and keeps talking. “All I’m trying to say is, I don’t think you deserve to go to a superhuman hell prison for the rest of your lives - I don’t think many people deserve that, frankly - except maybe a few Kree I met once and also possibly Loki given what happened on Xandar two weeks ago - but if I tell Tony Stark about this, I doubt he’ll agree. At least when it comes to you, Wilson.”

“Hold up,” Wade says. “The fuck does Tony Stark have to do with anything? I break into some government hellsite to find my alien cat something to beat up and you decide to bring TONY STARK into this?”

Danvers is silent for a moment. “You didn’t know? I figured that was why…”

“No. No fucking way.” Wade shakes his head so quickly Matt gets second-hand whiplash. “You  _ better  _ be kidding, I swear to Bea Arthur. Or I’m coming back next week with an entire horde of NYC vigilantes in tow. I bet I could get Barnes on my side.”

“Only if you get Romanoff first and right now she’s in Europe on a team-up trying to not get the West Coast Avengers killed,” Danvers says. “But I digress.”

Wade snorts a laugh. “Is Gwen with them?”

“If you were an Avenger you’d be comforted by the distance,” Danvers says. “Last week she sent us a roomba with a bunch of knives taped to it and an _it’s a girl_ card where she scribbled over _a_ _girl_ with _homicidal -_ no idea how it got through security screening.”

“That’s my Gwenpool,” Wade whispers, wiping away a tear. “Truly living up to her namesake. They grow up so fast.”

“You  _ knew  _ about this?”

“I didn’t say that!” Wade backtracks. “I had nothing to do with that roomba  _ or  _ the past thirty-two occasions like it and I definitely would never encourage such delinquent behaviour in the youth -”

“You are  _ literally  _ wanted for murder in sixty different countries,” Matt interrupts. “Can we get on with this, Danvers? Are you or are you not going to sell us out to St*rk since apparently the implication here is that he  _ owns  _ this place?”

“I don’t have a choice,” Danvers says, neither confirming or denying his implied question on the Stark front. “I don’t know what you expect me to do. You’ve broken a half dozen laws -”

The flerken lets out an unholy screaming noise, drowning out the rest of her sentence.

“Oh, don’t give me that look, Goose,” Danvers says irritably. “Just because you like their cat doesn’t mean I can let them get away with breaking into highly secured and dangerous private property.”

(“ _ Highly secured _ ,” Matt and Wade cough into their fists in perfect unison. Peter does Not seem to like this open display of disdain and slaps both of their hands with the full force of his super-strength; they hastily return them to their sides.)

Goose whines in protest. It sounds like a broken military drone.

“I knew I should’ve left you with Fury,” Carol mutters. “Ungrateful brat.”

More growling. 

“The flerken makes a very good point,” Matt points out helpfully. 

Carol covers her face with her hands and hedges a deep sigh. “You’re all making this decision harder than it needs to be.”

“That was the intention, yes,” Matt says.

Carol drops her hand from her face. “You’re enjoying this.”

“Me, ma’am?” Matt offers his best charming lawyer-y grin. “Never.”

“I hate you all.”

“Understandable,” Matt agrees pleasantly, jerking his thumb in Wade’s direction with a commiserating smile. “We do spend time around this idiot, so I’m sure we’ve picked up some of his negative levels of charisma in the years we’ve associated with him.”

“Negative levels of -  _ Matty! _ ” Wade punches Matt in the shoulder. “I’ll have you know I am known as a charismatic asshole. Like, that’s my entire schtick.”

Peter sticks his head out from where he’s hidden, again, behind Wade’s considerable bulk and Matt’s implied zone of control. “Ms. Danvers?”

Danvers groans. “Yes, Peter?”

“I’d just like to point out that you could like … not send us to the Raft,” Peter says. Matt’s so proud. Look at the kid, using his words. There’s hope for him yet. “You could just … let us leave and then we wouldn’t come back?”

“Speak for yourself, kid,” Wade mumbles, “ _ I  _ want an alien plasma gun and by God I am going to get it.”

Matt elbows Wade in the side. “Not helping.”

“Look, Peter, I have sympathy here,” Danvers said, folding her arms over her chest. “Ending up in places I shouldn’t be due to a dumbass decision is my forte, and just because you did it once doesn’t mean I’m ready to let you end up in a government-sanctioned ditch for the rest of your life. So I’m willing to let you off free here.” She pauses. “Also, I really want to get back to fixing my ship. I know that you guys are up to something, but I don’t honestly care as long as I don’t have to hunt any of you down in a month because you’ve drunk a vial of Bruce Banner’s fucking blood and become a Hulk vampire or something, I don’t know. I’m a busy woman and I’ll let you find your own way out of here - as long as you don’t touch  _ jack. Shit _ . That includes you, Wilson.”

Wade tries to do a fist pump, but Peter grabs his arm and forces it back down to his side. “Thank you, Ms. Danvers!” he chirrups (sounding altogether too much like one of Wade’s hamsters), “won’t do it again, we promise!” 

Danvers points at the bay door some thirty feet distant that marks the end of the hangar. “Go out that way,” she says, “and keep walking and take a right at the catwalk. At the end of the catwalk there’ll be an elevator and I’m fairly sure Clint will show you the way out if you don’t piss him off.”

“Not pissing people off isn’t really our forte, ma’am,” Matt says as tactfully as he can manage.

Peter’s heart-rate skyrockets, and Matt cringes - he’s 90% sure he knows what Peter’s about to ask. “Before we go - can I ask, Ms Danvers,” the kid blurts.

Carol sighs. “Yes, I’m sure you can. And I’m sure you’re about to.”

“Are you maybe even the smallest bit … maybe slightly not straight?”

Danvers pauses. Laughs. (Peter cringes.) “Spider-boy. Child,” she says. “I am literally engaged to a woman, so I certainly  _ hope  _ I’m maybe the tiniest bit slightly not straight.”

Peter squeaks.

“Kid,” Matt says, as tactfully as he can. “Maybe don’t go around asking that of everyone you meet within two minutes of first contact.” 

“But it’s Captain Marvel,” Peter whisper-shouts, pointing at her. “Like actual Captain Marvel. Like actual  _ Carol Danvers _ -”

“She’s a dick if you know her well enough,” Wade interrupts. “Don’t get too fucking starry-eyed about her just yet.”

Matt’s pretty sure the photons around Wade’s body are doing something funky - shifting, churning maybe? - and he suspects it’s because even Danvers’s  _ glare _ is overpowered. He doesn’t bother telling Wade this, though. He’ll probably figure it out himself from the burning sensation, right? 

“Please be nice, Mr Deadpool,” Peter entreats. “I just. It’s really cool to know people can grow up and be famous and loved by like the entire country and still be queer, you know?”

“Are you implying I’m not a  _ fantastic _ queer role model for you, Pete,” Wade deadpans. “Because I’m hurt, honestly -”

“Yes,” Peter says defiantly, “you are a rat bastard murder man.”

Carol groans, pinches the bridge of her nose, and turns her back to walk away. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> blease,,,,,,, comeentms,,,,,,, vaildation,,,,,,,,,


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I know you can’t see this hallway, but I just want you to know you’re not missing anything,” Wade tells Matt. “Except a lot of white. So much white. It’s like a Hallmark movie in here."

**Wade**

When they reach the hangar bay door, kittens in tow (Stan Lee protested at leaving what Wade suspects may very well be her actual mother behind, but Wade has since rested her on one shoulder and Dryer Lint on the other like a pirate captain who’s allergic to parrots) Matt is the last to step over the threshold. The moment his heel is clear of the doorway, there’s a terrible Justin Bieber-esque screeching as the two metal doors automatically slide shut behind him. (Wade’s gotta get him some of those for his apartment - between the legs he loses on the regular that make it difficult to kick the door open when his hands are full of takeout, and the arms he loses on the regular that make it difficult to close it behind him when he can’t exactly grab the door handle, they could really come in handy. He could really do with a bat-cave in general, actually. Dead-cave? Pool-cave? Oh, to be an archetypal hero.)

Wade turns to face the hallway before them - long, claustrophobic, lined with the same white tiles as the last dozen hallways - and wonders if anyone ever told the government psychos who built this place about the invention of colorful wallpaper. “I know you can’t see this hallway, but I just want you to know you’re not missing anything,” Wade tells Matt. “Except a lot of white. So much white. It’s like a Hallmark movie in here. Hey! Remember how I helped you paint your wall?”

“That’s not what happened. That’s not what happened  _ at all. _ ”

“I could do that in here! It really needs it -” Wade reaches for his belt, intending to find the can of spray paint, only to remember he used it all up spray-painting Matt’s wall with bad jokes and obscenities and then stuck the alien plasma gun in the conveniently empty pouch. Dammit. He regrets nothing, though, even if Matt’s landlord wants to sue.

They reach the end of the hallway. There’s a sliding door there, which Peter opens for them. Beyond it, a metal catwalk stretches out across a vast room lit by blinding fluorescent lights that nearly rivals the hangar bay in size. Wade distrusts the catwalk from the moment he sees it; the whole contraption, along with its flimsy side rails that barely come up to his crotch, seems like a recipe for disaster. It’s flanked on either side by rows upon rows of narrow, cramped cells, which are stacked like blocks and descend into the darkness below the catwalk where they fade into obscurity amid the shadows.

Wade, stepping onto the catwalk, promptly leans off the side to get a better look at the cells (Dryer Lint and Stan Lee let out identical mewls of protest, and Peter steals Dryer Lint off one shoulder to hug her crossly to his chest, shooting Wade a glare. Glad to know the kid’s decided Stan Lee can fare for her fucking self). They’re obscured by thick steel bars that make it hard to see what’s inside, which is possibly the idea, but from what he can see it looks like there’s fuck-all inside. Narrow walkways criss-cross between the catwalk and various cells. Wade reaches out one gloved hand to touch the bars on the nearest cell, but Matt grabs him by the collar and pulls him back.

“That one’s electrified.”

Ah. That’s fun.

Wade stares at Matt and then back at the cell, which appears to be empty - exactly like, you know, all the other identical ones. Come to think about it, as far as Wade can see the entire room is desolately empty, and the only noise is from their voices echoing back at them. 

“The fuck?” Wade demands, turning in a circle slowly and taking in his surroundings. “Where are the aliens?”

“Going to go out on a limb and say they’re not here, Wade,” Matt says, already walking away. 

“It’s okay, Mr Deadpool,” Peter says, following Matt and craning his neck a bit to take in his surroundings. “They’ve gotta be somewhere. Mr Barton will probably show us where.”

“He’d  _ better _ ,” Wade says, and stomps after the two of them. His footfalls shake the catwalk and Peter grabs the handrail in distress. It violently shakes Stan Lee, who’s clinging to Wade’s shoulder like a barnacle, and she mewls at him in protest. He softens his pace a little. “I’ve come an long fucking way for a row of jail cells as empty as a movie theatre on the night of of the  _ Cats _ premiere - what kind of self respecting aliens live in these, anyway? They’re like - they’re just  _ cells _ , I’ve been in dozens of those, there’s nothing Star Wars about any of this.”

“I don’t know about that,” Peter says. He’s looking over the railing as he walks along, peering into the darkness below the catwalk. “The whole thing with steeply shadowed rooms and bridges that don’t have proper safety mechanisms seems pretty Star Wars.” (Wade’s never been prouder of the kid. Well, except that one time that he betrayed them because they all believed he was too naive and trusting to steal the tennis ball and then he just up and did it. That gives him Legit Dad Feelings, which he Does Not Like - they reek of commitment hanging over his head in a vaguely menacing way, like they - the Dad Feelings - are saying  _ I don’t need to actively come for you when hovering over your shoulder is perfectly uncomfortable enough and you have to acknowledge me sooner or later _ . The Definitely Not Dad Feelings underestimate Wade’s powers of denial.) 

“What’s down there, Mr Murdock?” Peter continues, and Wade slaps himself in the face to clear his head. “More cells?”

Matt cocks his head to the side a little. “More cells,” he affirms. 

“And they’re all empty?” Peter asks, crestfallen.

“From what I can tell, yeah.”

Wade kicks at the railing before jumping back, startled, when it breaks and tumbles into the darkness, rattling all the way. “Shit! Sorry. In my defense, this thing has the structural integrity of a door made out of drywall.”

Matt hauls him away from the railing by his collar. “Stop kicking things. I gave Natasha a promise that I’d help her with an operation in Hell’s Kitchen in two weeks, and if I’m too busy dying to fulfill it I’m pretty sure she’ll kill me.”

Wade squints at Matt for a moment. “You’d enjoy it, though,” he observes, jerking himself free and stomping after Peter, who’s a dozen feet ahead already. Matt follows (and he sounds like he’s stomping a little too because, at a guess, he doesn’t like the fact that Wade is  _ totally fucking right _ ), rattling the catwalk with each step.

They make it to the end of the catwalk with minimal collateral damage (the main casualty being Matt’s dignity, as he clutches at the side rail whenever Wade stomps his feet). The elevator at the end is large, and lined with reflective black tiles. There are exactly two (2) buttons to the left of the doors. The lower one is labelled  _ Lower Cells _ and has an ID card slot next to it (at least Wade assumes it’s an ID card slot, though it looks like it could fit a spoon or a knife or a flash drive too. Possibly a fork if you were determined), and the upper is labelled  _ Medbay. _

Wade hits the Medbay button. The elevator starts moving upwards, causing Matt to sway, unsteady, and then grab onto Wade’s arm for support. When Wade wiggles his eyebrows in response, Matt lets go and mutters something about soundproof walls making him sick.

Wade gives Matt a pat on the back. It’s awkwardly sincere. Matt frowns, doing his best and most iconic  _ WTF  _ face. “You make me sick too,” he murmurs in Wade’s general direction after a minute, surprisingly gentle.

Peter coughs. 

Rude.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the updating delay, both of us are very busy and life is chaos, you can find us on tumblr at hoarding-citrine or desultorydenouement and how the hell does fensandmarshes put the tumblr links in the text because I literally have no idea and I'm sorry. Comments make us very happy so do some of those maybe if you want us to be :)


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint Barton, everyone: he’s here, he’s blond, and he’s SOMEWHAT pretty (which only mostly makes up for the incessant dumbassery).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're nearly at the END fam

**Wade**

The elevator doors slide open, hopefully at the medbay, with a pleasant ding. Wade’s gut reaction is  _ fuck  _ when he sees someone waiting there for them, followed immediately by a  _ fuck yes _ when he realises who it is.

Clint Barton, everyone: he’s here, he’s blond, he’s SOMEWHAT pretty (which only  _ mostly  _ makes up for the incessant dumbassery), and he’s staring directly at the three of them (five if you include the kitten and the alien tentacle monster kitten). Peter tugs on Wade’s arm. “ _ I think they found us _ ,” he says in an exaggerated whisper. Wade sniggers.

Matt pauses, tilts his head, breaks into a grin. He and Clint do a complicated sequence of fist-bumps, like a secret handshake, that Wade decides he wants to participate in; this idea, as brilliant as it is, results in Wade being bitch-slapped in the face by two sets of open palms that were about to be clapped together. Whoops. Peter stares between the three of them before deciding that to be honest, he’s seen worse, and clearing his throat meaningfully. (Matt turns; Clint follows a moment later.)

“Dumpster buddies!” Clint greets them.

“This is going to be my legacy now, huh,” Matt deadpans without any hope in his expression or his voice.

“Yes,” Clint and Wade inform him in unison before high-fiving. (Matt has to duck out of the way, due to the confines of the small elevator; he barely avoids being slapped in a similar manner to Wade only a moment before.)

Clint turns to walk away, limping a little, and beckons them over his shoulder. Wade loves that he didn’t even do any sort of double-take at the kitten sprawled in Peter’s arms and the one hanging on determinedly to Wade’s right shoulder. When they arrive, the medbay lives up to any and all expectations Wade might have had, but only in the most boring way imaginable; it’s essentially a doctor’s office, staunch white with plastic chairs along the walls, and even to Wade it smells of chemicals. Matt visibly wrinkles his nose as he steps out of the elevator. 

“God, am I glad you three are here,” Clint says, “Dunno why you’d want to come here, honestly, but I’ve been really futzing bored.” Oh, buddy, you are not ready to learn about Stan Lee. “Most Avengers don’t come here, they just end up here. I hitched a ride with Carol’s ship and she stops by here to do repairs every once in a while, so I’m stuck until she heads back to HQ - and, uh, I sprained my ankle a week ago, which is why I’m in the medbay.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Doesn’t even hurt, but it takes so futzing long to get an appointment, man. I’ve been waiting for an hour and a half. There aren’t even any other people here. The doctors at this place are just futzing with me, I swear. They hate me because I’m terrible at scheduling appointments. But scheduling an appointment in this place requires, like, an ID card, for the Avengers or the laboratories or security or some shit, and I  _ always _ forget to bring my Avengers ID card. But look, in my defense, I was undercover and you can’t bring an ID card  _ undercover _ ; you’d just be  _ asking _ for some washed-out Hydra bastard to clock you in the nose -”

“Clint,” Matt says, interrupting Clint’s rambling. “Carol said you’d show us the exit.”

Clint blinks at them dolefully, dropping his hand from his hair. “Oh. Uh. Right. Hm. I can do that.” He makes no motion to do that.

“You could,” Wade says reasonably. “I mean, you could do that.” (And in fact, maybe they should, given Wade should probably GTFO before the army people or whoever notice their alien plasma gun missing. But when has Wade been known for his good decisions?)

Matt and Peter glance at Wade in unison. It’s almost comical how similar their expressions are, even viewed through a pair of masks.

“You could do that, Clint,” Wade agrees again, “and go back to sitting in a medbay chair waiting for a doctor’s appointment.  _ Or - _ and bear with me here -”

Matt buries his face in his hands. “Waaaaade. No. Danvers will kill us.”

Wade holds up a finger to silence Matt. “-  _ or _ you could show us the aliens.”

Clint’s eyes light up at the prospect. “Hey, yeah, I mean, a slight detour on the way to the exit wouldn’t hurt.”

“This is a terrible idea,” Matt says. “Peter, back me up.”

Peter, who looks just as excited as Clint, holds a guilty silence. Wade high fives him. Matt wants to strangle them both.

“Here, let’s take the elevator,” Clint says. He walks into the elevator they just departed from and glances at the  _ Lower Cells _ button with the keycard slot. “Futzing hell - what is it with this place and keycards? This isn’t a hotel!”

“Say fucking, coward,” Wade says. Clint ignores him (“Hotel Nevada?”) and exits the elevator to head for the door across the waiting room. (“Hotel Alien-sylvania?”)

“This is a stairwell to the labs,” he explains. “And the labs have a stairwell to the private rooms. And the private rooms have a stairwell to the  _ actual _ cells, which are a lot more high-tech then those glorified hamster cages - and also aren’t usually locked, because if there’s really an alien so futzing powerful it has to be kept in the high-tech cages we want to be in its good graces and not lock it up, right? If only the NYPD used that strategy with me. I wouldn’t get arrested nearly as often, right?”

“If only,” Matt mourns, following Clint as they descend into the concrete stairwell. “I might have time to take on actual lawyer jobs between my time spent defending you and Wade for dumbass offenses.”

“I dunno, Redthew. This whole theory seems to hinge on the unfortunately mistaken belief that this guy is  _ powerful,”  _ Wade says, gesturing to Clint and then doing air quotes. “Whereas the coward says  _ futzing _ instead of fucking even though this fic is rated at  _ least _ T and he doesn’t have to make up bizarre Franken-words to avoid cursing.”

“Rude,” Peter protests, and pokes Wade. “Don’t be.”

“Yeah, rude,” Clint says. They’ve reached the bottom of the stairwell, and Clint pushes the door open with his shoulder, leading them into a small laboratory that’s abandoned except for a dark-haired man sitting on a stool with his head bent over some notes. 

Once they’ve all stepped through the threshold, Clint lets the door fall shut, “Uh, hey Bruce,” he says, scratching his neck and looking chagrined. “Didn’t know you were in here.”

The man looks up from his notes. It’s Bruce Banner. Wade clutches at his heart. 

“ _ Holyshit you’re one of the most renowned scientists of the century,”  _ Peter whispers, utterly in awe. Bruce squints at the four of them for a moment, glances down at his notes, and then looks up again.

“Clint,” he says. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but, ah, hm. I’m fairly sure that they -” he points three fingers at Matt, Wade, and Peter - “aren’t supposed to be in here.”

Clint doesn’t correct him.

“And again - correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m also fairly sure that you didn’t think I’d be in here, or you wouldn’t have brought them this way?”

“In my defense,” Clint begins, and Matt cringes in the same way he does whenever Wade utters those words (he assumes it’s because Matt has heard Wade’s - or, wait, no,  _ both  _ of their defenses - firsthand in courts of law! Get tag-teamed, Matty) - “I thought you’d be in the larger laboratory.”

Bruce removes his glasses and starts to polish them. “Tony has unfinished projects in there. And Tony’s unfinished projects tend to be big and make loud noises and when things near me are big and make loud noises I tend to become big and make loud noises. It’s an unfortunate cycle that I’m hoping to put an end to. Does Carol know about this?”

“That we’re here? Absolutely,” Matt says, bending but not quite breaking the truth. There’s the subtle lawyer-y skillz paying off! Wade gives him two double thumbs up and a totally obsolete wink that Matt probably can’t even tell he’s doing, thereby negating any subtlety Matt might have accrued via shifty, lawyer-y charm.

Ah, well.

“That Clint’s taking you to the private rooms,” Bruce corrects. His glasses are definitely clean by now, but he doesn’t stop polishing them. 

Matt falls into a guilty silence. Bruce finally sets down the glasses and makes eye contact with Clint, who hasn’t dropped his hand from his neck. 

“I hope you realize how disastrous this has the potential to be,” Bruce says. 

Wade decides it’s time to do something about all this. When in doubt: seduce! (He was  _ terrible  _ at D&D when Peter forced them all to play.) He drops his hand from his heart and runs full tilt at Bruce, dropping to his knees six feet away so he skids to the foot of Bruce’s stool like an old-timey suitor a la the Princess Bride. (Then again, isn’t the Dread Pirate Roberts Matt’s whole schtick? Their costumes are basically the same. Wade considers himself a master thief of Matt’s schtick, so he decides not to let it bother him.) 

“Brucie,” Wade swoons. “Doctor Banner. Mister Ruffalo. Bob Danner. Ol’ Green Skin. Hulk. Let us walk free. For the sake of my passionate, incomparable love for you? For the sake of the bond we share?” He seizes Bruce’s hand and kisses it. “Our union is ineffable and inevitable -”

“We don’t share any bonds,” Bruce informs him, removing his hand from Wade’s grasp and folding it on his lap. His loss, but also,  _ ouch _ . “And I get the feeling you’ve been watching Good Omens; ‘ineffable’ doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means. But I won’t report you. If I reported you, you would probably go to the Raft, which I’m not overly fond of.”

“No shit,” Wade scoffs, getting to his feet.

“No shit,” Bruce agrees mildly. “Just be careful, Clint. Don’t let them near a symbiote or anything.”

“I knew it,” Matt insists, face lighting up. “I  _ knew _ there was a Venom here! I called it.” 

Clint ignores Matt and starts heading for the doorway across the laboratory, walking backwards so as to avoid turning his back on Bruce. “Thanks, man. I owe you one.”

“You already owe me one from that time with the Doom-bots,” Bruce corrects. He places his glasses back on his nose and starts flipping through his notes again. Wade overexaggerates his turning dramatically between the two of them, like he’s watching a tennis match.

“I owe you two?”

“Try five.”

Clint does a mock salute as he opens up the second stairwell door and beckons the trio hither. Wade, uncharacteristically, doesn’t push it. 


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Matt launches into a two-hour monologue documenting the reasons Wade is wrong and he’s right, Wade nearly crashes the Tony Stark Futuristic Space Car.   
> (And doesn’t _that_ set the tone for the road trip home.)

**Wade**

Clint (sidenote, if this were hypothetically being written down, which of course it isn’t, Wade would’ve misspelt that as ‘clit’  _ so many times  _ by now) leads them through the stairwell and into another hallway. Rather than trail directly behind him like a good lil Deadpool, Wade is exploring the room; assessing the space, analysing defence possibilities and escape routes, and  _ almost  _ satisfying his urge to find out what that big red button does before Matt smacks his hand away from it; he’s followed Wade like a shadow for, most likely, that exact reason. “Behave,” Clint says in probably the exact tone he uses with the WCA. Wade laughs.

To be fair, he’s not the only one misbehaving. Peter’s currently poking at various control panels on the ceiling, having procured a screwdriver from somewhere and removed one too many safety panels for his actions to fall under the category “I was just having a  _ look _ , mIsTeR sTaRk, you can’t send me to the Raft for peeking at super confidential technology when I didn’t know it was super confidential!”. Wade catches the various parts he drops from the ceiling, stuffing them into various pouches. Matt, for his part, is hovering anxiously at Wade’s shoulder, ready to immobilise him if he touches anything too sensitive, while darting tense glances (are they ‘glances’ if he tilts his left ear towards the kid, rather than his eyes? Surely. They’re ear-glances. That’s a thing, right?) towards Peter’s position on the domed ceiling. 

“I feel like a Gwenpool cameo is overdue,” Wade says, just to say something.

Clint freezes, shudders, shakes his head violently. “God, no. Please. No.”

“Who?” Matt says curiously, batting Wade’s hand away from an extremely tempting lever marked DO NOT TOUCH. “Small girl you who thinks she’s in another world? The one that told me I was pretty and told Peter that, and I quote, his ‘winged eyeliner game was strong’?” 

“She’s not just small girl me!” Wade defends. “She doesn’t even read my comics.”

“She  _ acts  _ like small girl you.”

“No she doesn’t! She only does that when she’s badly written!”

“I have literally no clue what you’re talking about.”

“Christopher Hastings is the only valid -”

“Guys!” Peter says excitedly, dropping directly in front of them and making Wade leap backwards. “I found a dead pigeon in this control booth!”

“Very funny,” Clint says, before turning and doing a double-take. “Wait, is that  _ actually  _ -?”

Matt sniffs the air and then grimaces. “So that’s what that is. I thought it was just Wade.”

Wade flips Matt off lovingly. “Excuse you, that’s probably Stan Lee’s. She’s been vomiting them up all over the place lately but she always comes back and eats it again. It’s an endless cycle.”

Clint makes a gagging sound. 

“Be nice,” Wade admonishes, cuffing Clint lightly in the shoulder for his sins. “It’s the ciiircle of liiiiife!”

Matt sniffs again, though Wade gets the feeling this one’s more to convey his disdain than to actually smell anything. “Bull _ shit  _ is it anything to do with  _ life. _ ”

“Stan Lee’s alive!”

“She’s an alien, Wade. Is she even a carbon life-form?”

Wade does not want to admit that he doesn’t have an answer to that. Quite frankly, he doesn’t know much about proper flerken care; he’s been letting her eat what she wants when she wants, leaving offerings of cat food from the supermarket that she sniffs at disdainfully (very much like Matt, actually; fuck, they’re rubbing off on each other) before Dryer Lint steals them, eats them, and promptly throws up in the boots of Wade’s Deadpool suit (or, one memorable time, in the mask). He guesses there’s a difference between Stan Lee eating something with her tentacles vs her dainty little kitten mouth, ‘cause one of the X-Men mentioned something about a pocket dimension inside the tentacles? Or something? Wade can’t really remember; he reckons it was Cyclops who was telling him, hence the … distraction. The point being: Wade knows fuck-all about flerken biology, and the only person who can really tell him is a) actively out for his blood and b) hopefully, possibly, maybe still unaware he actually  _ has  _ a flerken.

(He stole it from her, six months back or so, and swapped it with a real kitten. Bona fide  _ Felis catus _ . Ironically enough, he’s pretty sure Peter ended up with that one rather than acquiring a flerken kitten of his own. Going off the amount of limbs Wade’s lost to Stan Lee’s slavering tentacles, it’s probably for the best.)

“Remind us where you’re taking us, Mr Barton?” Peter calls from the far end of the hallway. 

“Hawkeye,” Wade corrects. “Or ‘dipshit’, he answers to it. Or ‘honey-boo’. Or -”

Clint manages to radiate tired and stressed energy strongly enough that, even though he doesn’t say a single word, it’s like he’s interrupting Wade when he pinches the bridge of his nose.

“I’m sorry,” Wade simpers, “did you have something to say?”

Clint sighs.

“Valid contribution. Fair point. Interesting, uhm,  _ object of ponderance _ ,” Wade agrees solemnly. “Anything else you’d like to add to the discussion?”

“Can you believe this asshole,” Clint sighs (fondly? There’s a  _ whiff _ of fondness in there, surely), waving his hand vaguely in Wade’s direction. Matt snickers, and Wade shoots him a betrayed glare in return.

(The glare is wasted, obviously. “I’m glaring at you with the force of a thousand stars committing nuclear fusion at once,” Wade summarises seriously, but even his, ah,  _ wordsmithing  _ can’t really do it justice.)

(‘Justice’ is Matt’s schtick, anyway.)

Peter, oblivious to the majority of the conversation, repeats his question from where he’s wandered ahead: “Which way are we going, Mr Barton? Where are you taking us?”

“You sound like every kidnappee in every movie ever,” Wade shouts back.

“I’m showing you the exit,” Clint says, and he sounds like he doesn’t even believe himself when he says it.

“Can I steal an alien gun?”

“No,” Clint replies pleasantly, “because if I aided and abetted you in your stealing of said alien gun Tony would have me thrown in the Raft. I do not want to go to the Raft, man.”

“At this point, you’re using the Raft interchangeably with the Bogeyman,” Matt points out conversationally. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Whatever, man, that place futzing scares me!”

Clint leads them down the hallway where Peter’s waited for them and swipes his ID card. The door hisses open and leads into a dull concrete building not dissimilar to Matt’s apartment, with its bare floors and lack of decor. “This place feel familiar to you, Matty?” Wade asks, elbowing him in the shoulder because he was aiming for the gut but forgot that Matt’s considerably shorter than him when he’s not decked out in Daredevil attire (there are  _ definitely  _ some kind of heels on those boots - ahem, sorry,  _ lifts _ \- and Wade would know). “It looks a lot like your apartment, eff-why-i. Fuck-all by way of decoration and it’s about the same colour -  _ ooh _ , reckon I could spray-paint in here too -?”

“I’m sure you could,” Matt replies, “but if you do I will remove your spleen and feed it to Stan Lee while simultaneously telling Danvers that it was you who swapped one of Goose’s kittens out for a normal cat.”

The former part of the threat is understandable. The latter is below-the-belt and uncalled for, and Wade makes his affront known.

“Grow up,” Matt says coldly.

Rude.

Matt laughs.

“The exit’s right over there,” Clint says, pointing to a large metal roller door of corrugated metal at the opposite end of the bland warehouse. “If I were you I’d find some way to hide from the crowds though, and I’m pretty sure you were already on the news once, so …”

“Hide from St*rk,” Matt agrees, nodding. (Wade’s extremely impressed that Matt’s hatred for Iron Man is tangible enough it warrants the meta censorship of his name - although who is he kidding? Matt, for all his polite smiley lawyery facade, wants to eat any and all Rich that cross his path, and Wade can definitely respect that dedication.) 

Clint raises his eyebrows. “I didn’t say that and  _ definitely  _ didn’t suggest evading surveillance facilitated by government-affiliated individuals.” He turns to Matt for - what, validation? Praise? Encouragement? He looks like a dog that’s just brought back the stick thrown for it to fetch and wants to be told just how good of a job it did at returning a goddamn piece of tree to its yeeter.

“You certainly didn’t,” Matt confirms, wearing a shit-eating grin. 

_ Oh _ . That makes sense, actually.

Peter makes an exaggeratedly sad face in Clint’s direction. “Do we have to leave, Mr Barton? Like, right now? You really can’t show us anything else?”

“Wade got his alien plasma gun and you got to see an alien and I am probably going to get in ridiculous amounts of trouble,” Clint explains. “You’re leaving. Right futzing now.”

“I didn’t get to see an alien!” Peter complains, at the same time as Matt says, deeply suspicious, “When did Wade get an alien plasma gun?”

“Stan Lee is an alien,” Wade dismisses; he’s got a vested interest in getting as far the fuck away as possible before they notice the alien gun things missing. “So is her mom. Let’s leave or I will pick you both up bodily and dump you in the car.”

“I have super strength,” Peter objects.

“Then get in the car of your own accord, I don’t care.” Wade gestures pointedly towards the door. “Let us go, my comrades, fellow adventurers, valiant brothers-in-arms -”

“Didn’t your flerken kitten eat her way out of your car?” Clint points out, obnoxiously reasonable.

Wade meets Clint’s eyes, raises his eyebrows (though it’s probably indiscernible - a shameful travesty, really) and pulls the Tony Stark Futuristic Space Car Keys from one of his pouches.

“Nope,” Clint says, turning away and raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Nuh-uh. You’re on your own now. Dumpster pact ended. Leave me out of this.”

Wade watches him go and then whispers to Peter, dangling the keys enticingly in front of the kid’s nose (though his token quietness is totally ineffectual because Matt is standing Right There and looking increasingly trying-not-to-be-pleased by the minute), “Do you wanna have a turn driving the Tony Stark Futuristic Space Car?”

“I don’t have a license,” Peter says, looking sorely tempted.

“I don’t think anyone has a license to drive a Tony Stark Futuristic Space Car, kid.”

“They have bus licenses and truck licenses,” Peter points out reasonably. “Maybe they have ‘experimental vehicle that probably shouldn’t be driven under any circumstances’ licenses too.”

“You definitely have one of those, Wade,” Matt says, grinning possibly too much given this is  _ Wade’s  _ genius idea/theft/heist, thank you very much, and Matt is looking far too proud of himself.

Rather than point this out, however, Wade rolls with it. “An experimental vehicle that probably shouldn’t be driven under any circumstances?” he gasps. “Why didn’t you just say so?”

Matt makes an exaggerated groan. “Take me home, country roads,” he deadpans quietly, trying and failing to hide the smirk at his own joke.

Peter snickers. 

Wade decides that everyone here is a heathen with no sense of humour and says as much. 

Matt states that Wade is objectively wrong given that he is a) a godless heathen and b) known for his famously bad sense of humour. When Matt launches into a  _ two-hour monologue  _ documenting the reasons Wade is wrong and he’s right, Wade nearly crashes the Tony Stark Futuristic Space Car. 

(And doesn’t  _ that  _ set the tone for the road trip home.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so the fic's basically over, there's just an epilogue to come? sorry this update is so late. i'm very sick rn and haven't had internet all weekend, my cowriter has lots on and she's very busy, and we are both just Messes in general.  
> thank you for sticking with us if you made it this far! this fic is our baby (or, as we like to call it, our "dumb chaos area 51 baby") and it means a lot to both of us that you liked it too.   
> have a LOVELY day. you deserve it.


	15. epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sooo,” Peter grins, wagging his hands around in some kind of symbol or gesture - finger-guns, Matt guesses, although he’s not sure - “surpriiiise?”  
> “What’s a surprise?” Matt queries, trying to sound gentle while Wade starts the car and, without warning, _literally_ stomps on the accelerator.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uwu cry

**Matt**

“I feel like we should do something. Anyone else feel like we should do something about that?” Wade says uncomfortably, peering out his window. It takes Matt just a moment to place the scene outside, because he knows it as well as breathing: the whisper of air on metal, harsh and ragged breaths, two figures with one looming over the other. Who knew they even had muggings in …  _ Nebraska, _ or wherever the fuck they are? 

No one replies.

“Are you guys implying  _ I  _ should do something about that?" Wade hedges. “‘Cause I dunno if that’s a good idea.”

Matt stretches, stiff from being in the car. “You know what? We'll let you handle this one, kid,” he says to Peter, laying on the heartfelt-ery to win him over. Let him have a chance to do things on his own, right? Also, Matt doesn’t really want to move right now.

“You go, Red, you’re all  _ dressed up  _ already,” Wade says, pulling over. “I’m rolling my eyes at you ‘cause you irritate me; Pete’s suit’s still in the trunk. Plus, you shouldn’t be lazy,” he adds, irritatingly condescending.

“Ugh.” Wade’s right on that point, at least - Matt’s still in his Devil of Hell’s Kitchen attire, minus the mask, which is sitting on the cupholder between his seat and Wade’s. But Peter’s got his suit on underneath his clothes, right? “His costume isn’t in the trunk,” Matt points out, puzzled.

Peter leans forwards, and Matt can hear the way one layer of fabric rasps against another as he moves; he’s definitely at least wearing part of it, because Matt can tell the difference between the loose folds of the kid’s t-shirt and the taut fabric underneath. “No, Mr. Murdock, my Spidey stuff’s definitely in the trunk,” Peter returns. He sounds concerned.

“Wait, what?”

“I stuck it there when we left Area 51, like, ten hours ago.” Peter leans back into his seat. “Are you, uh, feeling okay? Maybe you just need some sleep.”

Matt thinks back, and the kid’s right - he can remember a point was definitely made about _ “If you’re so desperate to get home fast, Red - given Rand running around with a duplicate Daredevil suit, which I’m still pissed about, by the way - you probably shouldn't wear your own suit on the way back or you're just gonna force me to stop at every mugging we see” _ , and he remembers Peter nodding along his agreement to Wade’s admittedly sound logic. “Then why do your clothes sound … strange?” Matt says. He tilts his head again, trying to focus, just as Peter stretches his arms.

“Uh ... what.”

“There’s two layers,” Matt frowns. “Are you messing with me? One's definitely tighter than the other.”

“I’m just wearing an undershirt?” Peter trails off, like he's trying to convince himself.

Wade frowns, reaching over to undo Matt’s seatbelt (at least, that’s what Matt hopes he was aiming for); Matt catches the hand before it gets there and gives it a warning squeeze. “Not gonna bother explaining just how  _ creepy  _ it is that you can tell what people are wearing, Matty,” Wade says, hastily withdrawing his hand before Matt can break it again, “although I’m sure it has its uses, but is one of you gonna get out there and save that poor, innocent passer-by or am I gonna have to break out one of Nate’s guns?”

Matt shudders. “Alright, alright!” he entreats, “leave the unrealistically big guns where they are.”

“Speaking of unrealistically big guns -”

“Don’t touch my arms, Wade, I swear to God -”

“I was talking about the plasma gun in the trunk, you heathen,” Wade simpers. “Unless you  _ want  _ me to -”

“You know fully well that I do not and have never wanted -”

“I wouldn’t say  _ never _ , Redthew, there was that time you seemed pretty  _ enamoured  _ with -”

“If you mention that in front of  _ anyone  _ again I will break every bone in your body,” Matt says, deadly serious. 

“My point stands,” Wade shrugs, somewhat (but only  _ somewhat _ ) apologetic. 

Matt sighs. 

It takes him less than a minute between exiting the car, menacing the mugger into submission without even laying a finger on him, and returning to his seat before he’s back to being the somewhat-responsible adult supervision. Luckily, Wade and Peter are sitting in awkward silence rather than discussing anything too chaotic. Matt’s aware he’s considered chaotic by some standards, but on a scale including those two he’s practically straight-laced.

“Sooo,” Peter grins, wagging his hands around in some kind of symbol or gesture - finger-guns, Matt guesses, although he’s not sure - “surpriiiise?”

“What’s a surprise?” Matt queries, trying to sound gentle while Wade starts the car and, without warning,  _ literally  _ stomps on the accelerator. Matt’s head thumps against his chair, and he rubs his neck ruefully. “Are you injured? I know sometimes hospitals make you wear those super-tight bandages -”

“No!” Peter says. “I’m fine.”

“You sound like Matt,” Wade scoffs under his breath. Rude. Fair, and true, but still rude.

“ _ Seriously _ ,” Peter insists earnestly. “I’m - okay, I’m not injured, anyway. I’m, uh.” Peter shifts, takes an uncomfortable breath. “Do you guys really not know? I swear I thought you knew.”

“Knew what, Peter?” Matt presses, as gently as he can.

A pause. A spike in heart rate. “Transgender?”

The car swerves a bit, and Matt dimly registers that Wade’s taken his hands off the fuCKING WHEEL AGAIN to turn and give Peter two thumbs-up. “Cool,” Wade says simply, which would be all well and good if the car weren’t SWERVING ALL OVER THE PLACE; luckily, he comes to his senses (for once) before Matt has to say anything and rights it on the road. “D’you want us to call you ‘she’?”

“NO,” Peter insists immediately.

“... okay, but what -”

“No, I’m, uh. I’m a trans guy.”

Matt’s somewhat out of his element but doing his level best. “That means you were born … ?”

“... yeah,” Peter says; his heart-rate kicks up  _ again _ , fast even for him (for context, Matt may or may not have confused him with the hamsters a couple of times) and his breathing is shallower. He’s very, very uncomfortable. It’s probably written all over his face, not that Matt can tell; either way, Peter’s not exactly being subtle.

“Uh … okay,” Matt says, shrugging (really not sure how to reply?? What is one supposed to say?). “You don’t need to worry about us being … bad about this, Peter. Wade’s, uh -”

He gestures. (Wade laughs.)

“... and I’m, uh, I don’t know much about this but I can promise I’m not going to treat you differently.” Matt tries for a smile. 

Peter’s calming down, so Matt’s probably? Doing? Something? Right? “I’m just not sure how you guys didn’t realise,” he says. “I thought you knew? I mean, especially you, Mr. Murdock, with your senses?”

Matt blanks. “What would have … clued me in?”

Peter curls back into the seat a bit. “I might??? Smell like blood sometimes???”

“All of us smell like blood sometimes,” Matt defends (because shit, he’s  _ right _ ). “I just figured the two of us were rubbing off on you.”

“Can’t you tell I breathe funny when I’m binding?”

“... You have anxiety,” Matt huffs, “you’re always breathing funny.”

Peter laughs, strained. “That’s not … that’s not how that works. You mean you  _ actually  _ didn’t know?”

“Redthew is a dumbass,” Wade says, patting Matt’s arm affectionately. Matt growls at him, and Wade blows a kiss in response. “We were all aware of this.”

“I graduated law school, I’m plenty smart -”

“What do you do if you get a concussion, gorgeous?”

Matt knows what Wade wants him to answer and he really fucking wishes he could lie. He settles for glaring in Wade’s general direction in sullen silence, and Wade gestures in his direction to emphasise his point.

“But you’re okay with this though,” Peter says, phrasing it like a statement but inflecting it like a question, and Matt feels guilty (although when  _ doesn’t  _ Matt feel guilty?) for making this conversation about anything other than Peter - he guesses this is a big moment. Wade nods, and after a moment Matt copies his movement, trying for some finger-guns because isn’t that what the Teens™ do? 

Wade and Peter gasp in perfect synchronicity.

“I don’t get it,” Matt says, because it seems like he has to clarify that even though it seems to be perpetually true when he’s around these two. “What did I do?”

“Finger-guns,” Peter whispers, like that explains anything.

“You shouldn’t stereotype, kid,” Wade chides. “Even though every one of us is, due to the nature of intertextuality, merely a combination of different archetypes and stereotypes viewed through a new lens, you still shouldn’t assume he’s queer just because he did finger guns.” He turns at Google Maps’ bequest, and Matt can only hope his eyes are on the road. “Because  _ that  _ would be the most ridiculous thing to ever happen in this particular universe.”

“Are you, though, Mr Murdock?” Peter prods, and when Matt lets out a long sigh he adds quickly “Only if you want to say, I guess.”

“I don’t know,” Matt groans. “Leave me alone.”

“My apologies, sir,” Wade simpers. Matt shoots him another glare.

It’s sometime late at night. Matt can’t sleep in cars, and he’s running on coffee; he’s surprised the kid isn’t asleep, especially given he’s been still and silent for over an hour now, but Matt can tell definitively that he’s awake and tries to avoid fixating too concernedly on his breathing. When Peter speaks up out of the quiet; Matt only avoids being startled because the change in his breath had given him a second or so of advance knowledge. Wade should definitely not be allowed to drive given how much the car swerves when he jumps. “Mr Murdock,” Peter murmurs, “okay, so I know you two joke a lot, but I’m never really sure -”

“Nothing I say is a joke, ever,” Wade deadpans.

“Shut up Wade,” Peter dismisses. Matt’s so proud of him. “I’m not really sure,” he continues, “what you mean and what you don’t - I guess what I’m getting at is - You remember when earlier, like a few days ago -”

“Breathe,” Wade advises gently and unexpectedly. 

“Basically I want to know if you really think I’m small and stupid and don’t respect you,” Peter says baldly. Which. Gotta give him credit for throwing it out there like that.

“I suppose you aren’t so bad,” Matt grumbles, mock-begrudging. “Even if you’re both idiots. With bad senses of humour. And absolutely  _ no idea  _ about what lawyers do beyond what you’ve pulled from travesties like Legally Blonde and Law and Order -”

“Legally Blonde is a  _ masterpiece _ , fuck you too,” Wade objects immediately. The car swerves violently. Matt, through his nausea, guesses Wade’s just doing it to fuck with him, and aims a punch towards his ear.

In the back seat, Peter sighs loudly and pointedly. It’s going to be a long drive home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes that felt kinda shoehorned in. no im too tired to care. pls,,,,,   
> thank u for coming this far with our dumb area 51 fic i love you


End file.
